Burning Daylight

!^

Presented to the
LIBRARY oj the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

by

Gershman

i

GERSH^TAW

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in 2010 witii funding from

University of Toronto

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BURNING DAYLIGHT

This is a presentation offer
of the

DAILY WORKER

''Peoples Champion of Liberty, Progress, Peace

and Prosperity''

Published every morning

at
50 East 13th St., New York

BURNING
DAYLIGHT

JACK LONDON

THE DAILY WORKER

Coifeioaf, 1910,
Bt the new YORK herald COMPAMY.

COPTBIGHT, 1910,

Br THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

All rights reserved

V3 ^

Printed in the United States of America
by Union Labor

BURNING DAYLIGHT

Treat xo« Llcdl .*
end return xne \o

GERSHMAN

BURNING DAYLIGHT

PART I
CHAPTER I

It was a quiet night in the Tivoli. At the bar, which
ranged along one side of the large chinked-log room, leaned
half a dozen men, two of whom were discussing the relative
merits of spruce-tea and lime-juice as remedies for scurvy.
They argued with an air of depression and with intervals of
morose silence. The other men scarcely heeded them. In
a row, against the opposite wall, were the gambling games.
The crap-table was deserted. One lone man was playing
at the faro-table. The roulette-ball was not even spinning,
and the gamekeeper stood by the roaring, red-hot stove,
talking with the young, dark-eyed woman, comely of face
and figure, who was known from Juneau to Fort Yukon as
the Virgin. Three men sat in at stud-poker, but they played
with small chips and without enthusiasm, while there were
no onlookers. On the floor of the dancing-room, which
opened out at the rear, three couples were waltzing drearily
to the strains of a violin and a piano.

Circle City was not deserted, nor was money tight. The
miners were in from Moosehide Creek and the other dig-
gings to the west, the summer washing had been good, and
the men's pouches were heavy with dust and nuggets. The
Klondike had not yet been discovered, nor had the miners
of the Yukon learned the possibilities of deep digging and
wood-firing. No work was done in the winter, and they
made a practice of hibernating in the large camps like

2 BURNING DAYLKJHT

Circle City during the long Arctic night. Time was heavy
on their hands, their pouches were well filled, and the only
social diversion to be found was in the saloons. Yet the
Tivoli was practically deserted, and the Virgin, standing
by the stove, yawned with uncovered mouth and said to
Charley Bates: —

"If something don't happen soon, I'm goin' to bed.
What's the matter with the camp, anyway? Everybody
dead?"

Bates did not even trouble to reply, but went on moodily
rolling a cigarette. Dan MacDonald, pioneer saloonman
and gambler on the upper Yukon, owner and proprietor of
the Tivoli and all its games, wandered forlornly across the
great vacant space of floor and joined the two at the stove.

"Anybody dead?" the Virgin asked him.

"Looks like it," was the answer.

"Then it must be the whole camp," she said with an air
of finality and with another yawn.

MacDonald grinned and nodded, and opened his mouth
to speak, when the front door swung wide and a man ap>-
peared in the Ught. A rush of frost, turned to vapor by
the heat of the room, swirled about him to liis knees and
poured on across the floor, growing thinner and thinner,
and perishing a dozen feet from the stove. Taking the
wisp broom from its nail inside the door, the newcomer
brushed the snow from his moccasins and high German
socks. He would have appeared a large man had not a
huge French-Canadian stepped up to him from the bar
and gripped his hand.

"Hello, Daylight!" was his greeting. "By Gar, you
good for sore eyes!"

"Hello, Louis, when did you-all blow in?" returned the
newcomer. "Come up and have a drink and tell us all
about Bone Creek. Why, dong-gone you-all, shake again.
Where's that pardner of yours? I'm looking for him."

BURNING DAYLIGHT 3

Another huge man detached himself from the bar to
shake hands. Olaf Henderson and French Louis, partners
together on Bone Creek, were the two largest men in the
country, and though they were but half a head taller than
the newcomer, between them he was dwarfed completely.

"Hello, Olaf, you're my meat, savvee that," said the one
called Daylight. "To-morrow's my birthday, and I'm going
to put you-all on your back — sawee? And you, too, Louis.
I can put you-all on your back on my birthday — savvee?
Come up and drink, Olaf, and I'll tell you-all about it."

The arrival of the newcomer seemed to send a flood
of warmth through the place. "It's Burning Daylight,"
the Virgin cried, the first to recognize him as he came into
the light. Charley Bates' tight features relaxed at the sight,
and MacDonald went over and joined the three at the bar.
With the advent of Burning Daylight the whole place
became suddenly brighter and cheerier. The barkeepers
were active. Voices were raised. Somebody laughed.
And when the fiddler, peering into the front room, remarked
to the pianist, "It's Burning Daylight," the waltz-time
perceptibly quickened, and the dancers, catching the con-
tagion, began to whirl about as if they really enjoyed it.
It was known to them of old time that nothing languished
when Burning Daylight was around.

He turned from the bar and saw the woman by the stove
and the eager look of welcome she extended him.

"Hello, Virgin, old girl," he called. "Hello, Charley.
What's the matter with you-all? Why wear faces like that
when coffins cost only three ounces? Come up, you-all, and
drink. Come up, you unburied dead, an' name your poison.
Come up, everybody. This is my night, and I'm going to
ride it. To-morrow I'm thirty, and then I'll be an old man.
It's the last fling of youth. Are you-all with me? Surge
along, then. Surge along.

"Hold on there, Davis," he called to the faro-dealer,

4 BURNING DAYLIGHT

who had shoved his chair back from the table. "I'm going
you one flutter to see whether you-all drink with me or we-
all drink with you."

Pulling a heavy sack of gold-dust from his coat pocket,
he dropped it on the high card.

"Fifty," he said.

The faro-dealer slipped two cards. The high card won.
He scribbled the amount on a pad, and the weigher at the
bar balanced fifty dollars' worth of dust in the gold-scales
and poured it into Burning Daylight's sack. The waltz in
the back room being finished, the three couples, followed by
the fiddler and the pianist and heading for the bar, caught
Dayhght's eye.

"Surge along, you-all!" he cried. "Surge along and
name it. This is my night, and it ain't a night that comes
frequent. Surge up, you Siwashes and Salmon-eaters. It's
my night, I tell you-all — "

"A blame mangy night," Charley Bates interpolated.

"You're right, my son," Burning Daylight went on gayly.
"A mangy night, but it's my night, you see. I'm the mangy
old he-wolf. Listen to me howl."

And howl he did, like a lone gray timber wolf, till the
Virgin thrust her pretty fingers in her ears and shivered.
A minute later she was whirled away in his arms to the
dancing-floor, where, along with the other three women
and their partners, a rollicking Virginia reel was soon in
progress. Men and women danced in moccasins, and the
place was soon a-roar. Burning Daylight the centre of it
and the animating spark, with quip and jest and rough
merriment rousing them out of the slough of despond in
which he had found them.

The atmosphere of the place changed with his coming.
He seemed to fill it with his tremendous vitality. Men who
entered from the street felt it immediately, and in response
to their queries the barkeepers nodded at the back room.

BUENING DAYLIGHT 5

and said comprehensively, "Burning Daylight's on the
tear." And the men who entered remained, and kept the
barkeepers busy. The gamblers took heart of life, and
soon the tables were filled, the click of chips and whir of
the roulette-ball rising monotonously and imperiously
above the hoarse rumble of men's voices and their oaths
and heavy laughs.

Few men knew Elam Harnish by any other name than
Burning Daylight, the name which had been given him in
the early days in the land because of his habit of routing
his comrades out of their blankets with the complaint that
daylight was burning. Of the pioneers in that far Arctic
wilderness, where all men were pioneers, he was reckoned
among the oldest. Men like Al Mayo and Jack McQues-
tion antedated him; but they had entered the land by cross-
ing the Rockies from the Hudson Bay country to the east.
He, however, had been the pioneer over the Chilcoot and
Chilcat passes. In the spring of 1883, twelve years before,
a stripling of eighteen, he had crossed over the Chilcoot with
five comrades. In the fall he had crossed back with one.
Four had perished by mischance in the bleak, uncharted
vastness. And for twelve years Elam Harnish had con-
tinued to grope for gold among the shadows of the Circle.

And no man had groped so obstinately nor so enduringly.
He had grown up with the land. He knew no other land.
Civilization was a dream of some previous life. Camps
like Forty Mile and Circle City were to him metropolises.
And not alone had he grown up with the land, for, raw as
it was, he had helped to make it. He had made history
and geography, and those that followed wrote of his tra-
verses and charted the trails his feet had broken.

Heroes are seldom given to hero-worship, but among
those of that young land, young as he was, he was accounted
an elder hero. In point of time he was before them. In
point of deed he was beyond them. In point of endurance

6 BURNING DAYLIGHT

it was acknowledged that he could kill the hardiest of them.
Furthermore, he was accounted a nervy man, a square man,
and a white man.

In all lands where life is a hazard lightly played with and
lightly flung aside, men turn, almost automatically, to gam-
bling for diversion and relaxation. In the Yukon men
gambled their lives for gold, and those that won gold from
the ground gambled for it with one another. Nor was Elam
Harnish an exception. He was a man's man primarily,
and the instinct in him to play the game of life was strong.
Environment had determined what form that game should
take. He was born on an Iowa farm, and his father had
emigrated to eastern Oregon, in which mining country
Elam's boyhood was lived. He had known nothing but
hard knocks for big stakes. Pluck and endurance counted
in the game, but the great god Chance dealt the cards.
Honest work for sure but meagre returns did not count. A
man played big. He risked everything for everything, and
anything less than everything meant that he was a loser.
So, for twelve Yukon years, Elam Harnish had been a loser.
True, on Moosehide Creek the past summer he had taken
out twenty thousand dollars, and what was left in the
ground was twenty thousand more. But, as he himself
proclaimed, that was no more than getting his ante back.
He had ante'd his life for a dozen years, and forty thousand
was a small pot for such a stake — the price of a drink and
a dance at the Tivoli, of a winter's flutter at Circle City,
and a grubstake for the year to come.

The men of the Yukon reversed the old maxim till it
read: hard come, easy go. At the end of the reel, Elam
Harnish called the house up to drink again. Drinks were
a dollar apiece, gold rated at sixteen dollars an ounce; there
were thirty in the house that accepted his invitation, and
between every dance the house was Elam's guest. This was
his night, and nobody was to be allowed to pay for anything.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 7

Not that Elam Harnish was a drinking man. Whiskey
meant little to him. He was too vital and robust, too un-
troubled in mind and body, to incline to the slavery of al-
cohol. He spent months at a time on trail and river when
he drank nothing stronger than coffee, while he had gone a
year at a time without even coffee. But he was gregarious,
and since the sole social expression of the Yukon was the
saloon, he expressed himself that way. When he was a lad
in the mining camps of the West, men had always done
that. To him it was the proper way for a man to express
himself socially. He knew no other way.

He was a striking figure of a man, despite his garb being
similar to that of all the men in the Tivoli. Soft-tanned
moccasins of moose-hide, beaded in Indian designs, covered
his feet. His trousers were ordinary overalls, his coat was
made from a blanket. Long-gauntleted leather mittens,
lined with wool, hung by his side. They were connected,
in the Yukon fashion, by a leather thong passed around the
neck and across the shoulders. On his head was a fur cap,
the ear-flaps raised and the tying-cords dangling. His face,
lean and slightly long, with the suggestion of hollows under
the cheek-bones, seemed almost Indian. The burnt skin
and keen dark eyes contributed to this effect, though the
bronze of the skin and the eyes themselves were essentially
those of a white man. He looked older than thirty, and
yet, smooth-shaven and without wrinkles, he was almost
boyish. This impression of age was based on no tangible
evidence. It came from the abstracter facts of the man,
from what he had endured and survived, which was far be-
yond that of ordinary men. He had lived life naked and
tensely, and something of all this smouldered in his eyes, vi-
brated in his voice, and seemed forever a-whisper on his lips.

The lips themselves were thin, and prone to close tightly
over the even, white teeth. But their harshness was re-
trieved by the upward curl at the corners of his mouth.

8 BURNING DAYLIGHT

This curl gave to him sweetness, as the minute puckers at
the corners of the eyes gave him laughter. These necessary
graces saved him from a nature that was essentially savage
and that otherwise would have been cruel and bitter. The
nose was lean, full-nostrilled, and delicate, and of a size to
fit the face; while the high forehead, as if to atone for its
narrowness, was splendidly domed and symmetrical. In
line with the Indian effect was his hair, very straight and
very black, with a gloss to it that only health could give.

"Burning Daylight's burning candlelight," laughed Dan
MacDonald, as an outburst of exclamations and merriment
came from the dancers.

"An' he iss der boy to do it, eh, Louis?" said Olaf
Henderson.

"Yes, by Gar! you bet on dat," said French Louis.
"Dat boy is all gold — "

"And when God Almighty washes Daylight's soul out on
the last big slucin' day," MacDonald interrupted, "why,
God Almighty '11 have to shovel gravel along with him into
the sluice-boxes."

"Dot iss goot," Olaf Henderson muttered, regarding the
gambler with profound admiration.

"Ver' good," affirmed French Louis. "I t'ink we take
a drink on dat one time, eh?"

CHAPTER II

It was two in the morning when the dancers, bent on
getting something to eat, adjourned the dancing for half
an hour. And it was at this moment that Jack Kearns
suggested poker. Jack Kearns was a big, bluff-featured
man, who, along with Bettles, had made the disastrous at-
tempt to found a post on the head-reaches of the Koyokuk,
far inside the Arctic Circle. After that, Kearns had fallen
back on his posts at Forty Mile and Sixty Mile and changed
the direction of his ventures by sending out to the States
for a small sawmill and a river steamer. The former was
even then being sledded across Chilcoot Pass by Indians
and dogs, and would come down the Yukon in the early
summer after the ice-run. Later in the summer, when
Bering Sea and the mouth of the Yukon cleared of ice, the
steamer, put together at St. Michaels, was to be expected
up the river loaded to the guards with supplies.

Jack Kearns suggested poker. French Louis, Dan Mac-
Donald, and Hal Campbell (who had make a strike on
Moosehide), all three of whom were not dancing because
there were not girls enough to go around, inclined to the
suggestion. They were looking for a fifth man when Burn-
ing Daylight emerged from the rear room, the Virgin on
his arm, the train of dancers in his wake. In response to
the hail of the poker-players, he came over to their table
in the corner.

"Want you to sit in," said Campbell. "How's your
luck?"

"I sure got it to-night," Burning Daylight answered with
enthusiasm, and at the same time felt the Virgin press his

9

XO BURNING DAYLIGHT

arm warningly. She wanted him for the dancing. "I sure
got my luck with me, but I'd sooner dance. I ain't hank-
erin' to take the money away from you-all."

Nobody urged. They took his refusal as final, and the
Virgin was pressing his arm to turn him away in pursuit
of the supper-seekers, when he experienced a change of
heart. It was not that he did not want to dance, nor that he
wanted to hurt her; but that insistent pressure on his arm
put his free man-nature in revolt. The thought in his mind
was that he did not want any woman running him. Himself
a favorite with women, nevertheless they did not bulk big
with him. They were toys, playthings, part of the relaxa-
tion from the bigger game of life. He met women along
with the whiskey and gambling, and from observation he
had found that it was far easier to break away from the
drink and the cards than from a woman once the man was
properly entangled.

He was a slave to himself, which was natural in one with
a healthy ego, but he rebelled in ways either murderous or
panicky at being a slave to anybody else. Love's sweet
servitude was a thing of which he had no comprehension.
Men he had seen in love impressed him as lunatics, and
lunacy was a thing he had never considered worth analyz-
ing. But comradeship with men was different from love
with women. There was no servitude in comradeship. It
was a business proposition, a square deal between men who
did not pursue each other, but who shared the risks of trail
and river and mountain in the pursuit of life and treasure.
Men and women pursued each other, and one must needs
bend the other to his will or hers. Comradeship was dif-
ferent. There was no slavery about it; and though he, a
strong man beyond strength's seeming, gave far more than
he received, he gave not something due but in royal largess,
his gifts of toil or heroic effort falling generously from his
hands. To pack for days over the gale-swept passes or

BURNING DAYLIGHT II

across the mosquito-ridden marshes, and to pack double
the weight his comrade packed, did not involve unfairness
or compulsion. Each did his best. That was the business
essence of it. Some men were stronger than others — true;
but so long as each man did his best it was fair exchange,
the business spirit was observed, and the square deal ob-
tained.

But with women — no. Women gave little and wanted
all. Women had apron-strings and were prone to tie them
about any man who looked twice in their direction. There
was the Virgin, yawning her head off when he came in and
mightily pleased that he asked her to dance. One dance
was all very well, but because he danced twice and thrice
with her and several times more, she squeezed his arm when
they asked him to sit in at poker. It was the obnoxious
apron-string, the first of the many compulsions she would
exert upon him if he gave in. Not that she was not a nice bit
of a woman, healthy and strapping and good to look upon,
also a very excellent dancer, but that she was a woman
with all a woman's desire to rope him with her apron-strings
and tie him hand and foot for the branding. Better poker.
Besides, he liked poker as well as he did dancing.

He resisted the pull on his arm by the mere negative mass
of him, and said: —

"I sort of feel a hankering to give you-all a flutter."

Again came the pull on his arm. She was trying to pass
the apron-string around him. For the fraction of an in-
stant he was a savage, dominated by the wave of fear and
murder that rose up in him. For that infinitesimal space
of time he was to all purposes a frightened tiger filled with
rage and terror at the apprehension of the trap. Had he
been no more than a savage, he would have leapt wildly
from the place or else sprung upon her and destroyed her.
But in that same instant there stirred in him the genera-
tions of discipline by which man had become an inadequate

12 BURNING DAYLIGHT

social animal. Tact and sympathy strove with him, and
he smiled with his eyes into the Virgin's eyes as he
said: —

"You-all go and get some grub. I ain't hungry. And
we'll dance some more by and by. The night's young yet.
Go to it, old girl."

He released his arm and thrust her playfully on the
shoulder, at the same time turning to the poker-players.

"Take off the limit and I'll go you-all."

"Limit's the roof," said Jack Kearns.

"Take off the roof."

The players glanced at one another, and Kearns an-
nounced, "The roof's off."

Elam Harnish dropped into the waiting chair, started to
pull out his gold-sack, and changed his mind. The Virgin
pouted a moment, then followed in the wake of the other
dancers.

"I'll bring you a sandwich. Daylight," she called back
over her shoulder.

He nodded. She was smiling her forgiveness. He had
escaped the apron-string, and without hurting her feelings
too severely.

"Let's play markers," he suggested. "Chips do ever-
lastingly clutter up the table. ... If it's agreeable to
you-all?"

"I'm wiUing," answered Hal Campbell. "Let mine run
at five hundred."

"Mine, too," answered Harnish, while the others stated
the values they put on their own markers, French Louis,
the most modest, issuing his at a hundred dollars each.

In Alaska, at that time, there were no rascals and no
tin-horn gamblers. Games were conducted honestly, and
men trusted one another. A man's word was as good as his
gold in the blower. A marker was a flat, oblong composi-
tion chip worth, perhaps, a cent. But when a man betted a

BURNING DAYLIGHT 13

marker in a game and said it was worth five hundred dol-
lars, it was accepted as worth five hundred dollars. Who-
ever won it knew that the man who issued it would redeem it
with five hundred dollars' worth of dust weighed out on the
scales. The markers being of different colors, there was no
difficulty in identifying the owners. Also, in that early
Yukon day, no one dreamed of playing table-stakes. A
man was good in a game for all that he possessed, no mat-
ter where his possessions were or what was their nature.

Harnish cut and got the deal. At this good augury, and
while shuffling the deck, he called to the barkeepers to set
up the drinks for the house. As he dealt the first card to
Dan MacDonald, on his left, he called out: —

"Get down to the ground, you-all, Malemutes, huskies,
and Siwash purps ! Get down and dig in ! Tighten up them
traces 1 Put your weight into the harness and bust the
breast-bands! Whoop-la! Yow! We're off and bound
for Helen Breakfast! And I tell you-all clear and plain
there's goin' to be stiff grades and fast goin' to-night before
we win to that same lady. And somebody's goin' to
bump . . . hard."

Once started, it was a quiet game, with little or no con-
versation, though all about the players the place was a-roar.
Elam Harnish had ignited the spark. More and more min-
ers dropped in to the Tivoli and remained. When Burning
Dayhght went on the tear, no man cared to miss it. The
dancing-fi jr was full. Owing to the shortage of women,
many of the men tied bandanna handkerchiefs around their
arms in token of femininity and danced with other men.
All the games were crowded, and the voices of the men talk-
ing at the long bar and grouped about the stove were
accompanied by the steady click of chips and the sharp
whir, rising and falling, of the roulette-ball. All the
materials of a proper Yukon night were at hand and mixing.

The luck at the table varied monotonously, no big hands

14 BURNING DAYLIGHT

being out. As a result, high play went on with small hands,
though no play lasted long. A filled straight belonging to
French Louis gave him a pot of five thousand against two
sets of threes held by Campbell and Kearns. One pot of
eight hundred dollars was won by a pair of trays on a show-
down. And once Harnish called Kearns for two thousand
dollars on a cold steal. When Kearns laid down his hand
it showed a bobtail flush, while Harnish's hand proved that
he had had the nerve to call on a pair of tens.

But at three in the morning the big combination of hands
arrived. It was the moment of moments that men wait
weeks for in a poker game. The news of it tingled over the
TivoU. The onlookers became quiet. The men farther
away ceased talking and moved over to the table. The
players deserted the other games, and the dancing-floor was
forsaken, so that all stood at last, fivescore and more, in
a compact and silent group, around the poker-table. The
high betting had begun before the draw, and still the high
betting went on, with the draw not in sight. Kearns had
dealt, and French Louis had opened the pot with one
marker — in his case one hundred dollars. Campbell had
merely "seen" it, but Elam Harnish, coming next, had
tossed in five hundred dollars, with the remark to Mac-
Donald that he was letting him in easy.

MacDonald, glancing again at his hand, put in a thou-
sand in markers. Kearns, debating a long time over his
hand, finally "saw." It then cost French Loui^ nine hun-
dred to remain in the game, which he contributed after a
similar debate. It cost Campbell likewise nine hundred to
remain and draw cards, but to the surprise of all he saw the
nine hundred and raised another thousand.

"You-all are on the grade at last," Harnish remarked, as
he saw the fifteen hundred and raised a thousand in turn.
"Helen Breakfast's sure on top this divide, and you-all had
best look out for bustin' harness."

BURNING DAYLIGHT 1 5

"Me for that same lady," accompanied MacDonald's
markers for two thousand and for an additional thousand-
dollar raise.

It was at this stage that the players sat up and knew
beyond peradventure that big hands were out. Though
their features showed nothing, each man was beginning
unconsciously to tense. Each man strove to appear his
natural self, and each natural self was different. Hal
Campbell affected his customary cautiousness. French
Louis betrayed interest. MacDonald retained his whole-
souled benevolence, though it seemed to take on a slightly
exaggerated tone. Kearns was coolly dispassionate and
noncommittal, while Elam Harnish appeared as quizzical
and jocular as ever. Eleven thousand dollars were already
in the pot, and the markers were heaped in a confused pile
in the centre of the table.

"I ain't go no more markers," Kearns remarked plain-
tively. "We'd best begin I.O.U.'s."

"Glad you're going to stay," was MacDonald's cordial
response.

"I ain't stayed yet. IVe got a thousand in already.
How's it stand now?"

"It'll cost you three thousand for a look in, but nobody
will stop you from raising."

"Raise — hell. You must think I got a pat like yourself."
Kearns looked at his hand. "But I'll tell you what I'll do,
Mac. I've got a hunch, and I'll just see that three thousand."

He wrote the sum on a slip of paper, signed his name,
and consigned it to the centre of the table.

French Louis became the focus of all eyes. He fingered
his cards nervously for a space. Then, with a "By Gar!
Ah got not one leetle beet hunch," he regretfully tossed his
hand into the discards.

The next moment the hundred and odd pairs of eyes
shifted to Campbell.

I6 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"I won't hump you, Jack," he said, contenting himself
with calling the requisite two thousand.

The eyes shifted to Harnish, who scribbed on a piece of
paper and shoved it forward.

''I'll just let you-all know this ain't no Sunday-school
society of philanthropy," he said. "I see you, Jack, and
I raise you a thousand. Here's where you-all get action
on your pat, Mac."

"Action's what I fatten on, and I Uft another thousand,"
was MacDonald's rejoinder. "Still got that hunch, Jack?"

"I still got the hunch." Kearns fingered his cards a
long time. "And I'll play it, but you've got to know how I
stand. There's my steamer, the Bella — worth twenty
thousand if she's worth an ounce. There's Sixty Mile with
five thousand in stock on the shelves. And you know I got
a sawmill coming in. It's at Linderman now, and the scow
is building. Am I good?"

"Dig in; you're sure good," was Daylight's answer.
"And while we're about it, I may mention casual that I got
twenty thousand in Mac's safe, there, and there's twenty
thousand more in the ground on Moosehide. You know the
ground, Campbell. Is they that-all in the dirt?"

"There sure is. Daylight."

"How much does it cost now?" Kearns asked.

"Two thousand to see."

"We'll sure hump you if you-all come in," Daylight
warned him.

"It's an almighty good hunch," Kearns said, adding his
slip for two thousand to the growing heap. "I can feel
her crawlin' up and dowTi my back."

"I ain't got a hunch, but I got a tolerable likeable hand,"
Campbell announced, as he slid in his slip; "but it's not a
raising hand."

"Mine is," Daylight paused and wrote. "I see that
thousand and raise her the same old thousand."

BURNING DAYLIGHT 1 7

The Virgin, standing behind him, then did what a man's
best friend was not privileged to do. Reaching over Day-
Hght's shoulder, she picked up his hand and read it, at the
same time shielding the faces of the five cards close to his
chest. What she saw were three queens and a pair of
eights, but nobody guessed what she saw. Every player's
eyes were on her face as she scanned the cards, but no sign
did she give. Her features might have been carved from
ice, for her expression was precisely the same before, during,
and after. Not a muscle quivered; nor was there the
slightest dilation of a nostril, nor the slightest increase of
light in the eyes. She laid the hand face down again on
the table, and slowly the lingering eyes withdrew from her,
having learned nothing.

MacDonald smiled benevolently. "I see you, Daylight,
and I hump this time for two thousand. How's that hunch,
Jack?"

"Still a-crawling, Mac. You got me now, but that
hunch is a rip-snorter persuadin' sort of a critter, and it's
my plain duty to ride it. I call for three thousand. And
I got another hunch: Daylight's going to call, too."

"He sure is," Daylight agreed, after Campbell had
thrown up his hand. "He knows when he's up against it,
and he plays accordin'. I see that two thousand, and then
I'll see the draw."

In a dead silence, save for the low voices of the three
players, the draw was made. Thirty-four thousand dollars
were already in the pot, and the play possibly not half over.
To the Virgin's amazement. Daylight held up his three
queens, discarding his eights and calling for two cards.
And this time not even she dared look at what he had
drawn. She knew her limit of control. Nor did he look.
The two new cards lay face down on the table where they
had been dealt to him.

"Cards?" Kearns asked of MacDonald.

l8 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"Got enough/' was the reply.

"You can draw if you want to, you know," Kearns
warned him.

"Nope; this'll do me."

Kearns himself drew two cards, but did not look at them.

Still Harnish let his cards lie.

"I never bet in the teeth of a pat hand," he said slowly,
looking at the saloon-keeper. "You-all start her rolling,
Mac."

MacDonald counted his cards carefully, to make doubly
sure it was not a foul hand, wrote a sum on a paper slip,
and slid it into the pot, with the simple utterance: —

"Five thousand."

Kearns, with every eye upon him, looked at his two-card
draw, counted the other three to dispel any doubt of hold-
ing more than five cards, and wrote on a betting slip.

"I see you, Mac," he said, "and I raise her a Httle thou-
sand just so as not to keep Dayhght out."

The concentrated gaze shifted to Daylight. He like-
wise examined his draw and counted his five cards.

"I see that six thousand, and I raise her five thousand
. . . just to try and keep you out, Jack."

"And I raise you five thousand just to lend a hand at
keeping Jack out," MacDonald said, in turn.

His voice was slightly husky and strained, and a nervous
twitch in the corner of his mouth followed speech.

Kearns was pale, and those who looked on noted that
his hand trembled as he wrote his shp. But his voice was
unchanged.

"I lift her along for five thousand," he said.

Daylight was now the centre. The kerosene lamps above
flung high lights from the rash of sweat on his forehead.
The bronze of his cheeks was darkened by the accession
of blood. His black eyes glittered, and his nostrils were
distended and eager. They were large nostrils, tokening

BURNING DAYLIGHT ZQ

his descent from savage ancestors who had survived by
virtue of deep lungs and generous air-passages.

Yet, unlike MacDonald, his voice was firm and custom-
ary, and, unlike Kearns, his hand rVxd not tremble when he
wrote.

"I call, for ten thousand," he sa'd. "Not that I'm afraid
of you-all, Mac. It's that hunch of Jack's."

"I hump his hunch for five thousand just the same,"
said MacDonald. "I had the best hand before the draw,
and I still guess I got it."

"Mebbe this is a case where a hunch after the draw is
better'n the hunch before," Kearns remarked; "where-
fore duty says, Xift her, Jack, lift her,' and so I lift her
another five thousand."

Daylight leaned back in his chair and gazed up at the
kerosene lamps while he computed aloud.

"I was in nine thousand before the draw, and I saw and
raised eleven thousand — that makes thirty. I'm only
good for ten more." He leaned forward and looked at
Kearns. "So I call that ten thousand."

"You can raise if you want," Kearns answered. "Your
dogs are good for five thousand in this game."

"Nary dawg. You-all can win my dust and dirt, but
nary one of my dawgs. I just call."

MacDonald considered for a long time. No one moved
or whispered. Not a muscle was relaxed on the part of
the onlookers. Not the weight of a body shifted from one
leg to the other. It was a sacred silence. Only could be
heard the roaring draft of the huge stove, and from without,
muffled by the log- walls, the howling of dogs. It was not
every night that high stakes were played on the Yukon,
and for that matter, this was the highest in the history of
the country. The saloon-keeper finally spoke.

"If anybody else wins, they'll have to take a mortgage
on the Tivoli."

20 BURNING DAYLIGHT

The two other players nodded.

"So I call, too."

MacDonald added his slip for five thousand.

Not one of them claimed the pot, and not one of them
called the size of his hand. Simultaneously and in silence
they faced their cards on the table, while a general tiptoe-
ing and craning of necks took place among the onlookers.
DayHght showed four queens and an ace; MacDonald
four jacks and an ace; and Kearns four kings and a trey.
Kearns reached forward with an encircling movement of
his arm and drew the pot in to him, his arm shaking as he
did so.

Daylight picked the ace from his hand and tossed it over
alongside MacDonald's ace, saying: —

"That's what cheered me along, Mac. I knowed it was
only kings that could beat me, and he had them.

"What did you-all have?" he asked, all interest, turning
to Campbell.

"Straight flush of four, open at both ends — a good
drawing hand."

"You bet! You could a' made a straight, a straight
flush, or a flush out of it."

"That's what I thought," Campbell said sadly. "It
cost me six thousand before I quit."

"I wisht you-all'd drawn," Daylight laughed. "Then
I wouldn't a' caught that fourth queen. Now I've got to
take Billy Rawlins' mail contract and mush for Dyea.
— What's the size of the killing, Jack?"

Kearns attempted to count the pot, but was too excited.
Daylight drew it across to him, with firm fingers separating
and stacking the markers and I.O.U.'s and with clear brain
adding the sum.

"One hundred and twenty-seven thousand," he an-
nounced. "You-all can sell out now. Jack, and head for
home."

BURNING DAYLIGHT 21

The winner smiled and nodded, but seemed incapable of
speech.

"I'd shout the drinks," MacDonald said, "only the house
don't belong to me any more,"

"Yes, it does," Kearns replied, first wetting his lips with
his tongue. "Your note's good for any length of time.
But the drinks are on me."

"Name your snake-juice, you-all — the winner pays I"
Daylight called out loudly to all about him, at the same
time rising from his chair and catching the Virgin by the
arm. "Come on for a reel, you-all dancers. The night's
young yet, and it's Helen Breakfast and the mail contract
for me in the morning. Here, you-all Rawlins, you — I
hereby do take over that same contract, and I start for salt
water at nine A.M. — savvee? Come on, you-all ! Where's
that fiddler?"

CHAPTER III

It was Daylight's night. He was the centre and the
head of the revel, unquenchably joyous, a contagion of fun.
He multiplied himself, and in so doing multiplied the ex-
citement. No prank he suggested was too wild for his
followers, and all followed save those that developed into
singing imbeciles and fell warbling by the wayside. Yet
never did trouble intrude. It was known on the Yukon
that when Burning Daylight made a night of it, wrath
and evil were forbidden. On his nights men dared not
quarrel. In the younger days such things had happened,
and then men had known what real wrath was, and been
man-handled as only Burning Daylight could man-handle.
On his nights men must laugh and be happy or go home.

Daylight was inexhaustible. In between dances he paid
over to Kearns the twenty thousand in dust and trans-
ferred to him his Moosehide claim. Likewise he arranged
the taking over of Billy Rawhns' mail contract, and made
his preparations for the start. He despatched a mes-
senger to rout out Kama, his dog-driver — a Tananaw
Indian, far-wandered from his tribal home in the service
of the invading whites. Kama entered the Tivoli, tall,
lean, muscular, and fur-clad, the pick of his barbaric race
and barbaric still, unshaken and unabashed by the revellers
that rioted about him while Daylight gave his orders.

"Um," said Kama, tabling his instructions on his fingers.
"Get um letters from Rawlins. Load um on sled. Grub
for Selkirk — you think um plenty dog-grub stop Selkirk?"

"Plenty dog-grub, Kama."

"Um. Bring sled this place nine um clock. Bring um

22

aud rr^tuia me 1 j

GERoFIMAN

snowshoes. No bring um tent. Mebbe bring um fly? um
little fly?"

"No fly," Daylight answered decisively.

"Um much cold."

"We travel light — savvee? We carry plenty letters
out, plenty letters back. You are strong man. Plenty
cold, plenty travel, all right."

"Sure all right," Kama muttered, with resignation.
"Much cold, no care a damn. Um ready nine um clock."

He turned on his moccasined heel and walked out, im-
p>erturbable, sphinx-like, neither giving nor receiving greet-
ings nor looking to right or left. The Virgin led Daylight
away into a corner.

"Look here, Daylight," she said, in a low voice, "you're
busted."

"Higher'n a kite."

"I've eight thousand in Mac's safe — " she began.

But Daylight interrupted. The apron-string loomed
near and he shied like an unbroken colt.

"It don't matter," he said. "Busted I came into the
world, busted I go out, and I've been busted most of the
time since I arrived. Come on; let's waltz,"

"But listen," she urged. "My money's doing nothing.
I could lend it to you — a grub-stake," she added hurriedly,
at sight of the alarm in his face.

"Nobody grub-stakes me," was the answer. "I stake
myself, and when I make a killing it's sure all mine. No
thank you, old girl. Much obliged. I'll get my stake by
running the mail out and in."

"Daylight," she murmured, in tender protest.

But with a sudden well-assumed ebullition of spirits he
drew her toward the dancing-floor, and as they swung
around and around in a waltz she pondered on the iron
heart of the man who held her in his arms and resisted all
her wiles.

24 BURNING DAYLIGHT

At six the next morning, scorching with whiskey, yet ever
himself, he stood at the bar putting every man's hand down.
The way of it was that two men faced each other across a
corner, their right elbows resting on the bar, their right
hands gripped together, while each strove to press the
other's hand down. Man after man came against him,
but no man put his hand down, even Olaf Henderson and
French Louis failing despite their hugeness. When they
contended it was a trick, a trained muscular knack, he
challenged them to another test.

"Look here, you-all!" he cried. "I'm going to do two
things: first, weigh my sack; and second, bet it that after
you-all have lifted clean from the floor all the sacks of flour
you-all are able, I'll put on two more sacks and lift the
whole caboodle clean."

"By Gar! Ah take dat!" French Louis rumbled above
the cheers.

"Hold onl" Olaf Henderson cried. "I ban yust as
good as you, Louis. I yump half that bet."

Put on the scales. Daylight's sack was found to balance
an even four hundred dollars, and Louis and Olaf divided
the bet between them. Fifty-pound sacks of flour were
brought in from MacDonald's cache. Other men tested
their strength first. They straddled on two chairs, the
flour sacks beneath them on the floor and held together by
rope-lashings. Many of the men were able, in this manner,
to lift four or five hundred pounds, while some succeeded
with as high as six hundred. Then the two giants took
a hand, tying at seven hundred. French Louis then added
another sack, and swung seven hundred and fifty clear.
Olaf duplicated the performance, whereupon both failed to
clear eight hundred. Again and again they strove, their
foreheads beaded with sweat, their frames crackling with
the effort. Both were able to shift the weight and to
bump it, but clear the floor with it they could not.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 2$

"By Gar! Daylight, dis tam you mek one beeg mees-
take," French Louis said, straightening up and stepping
down from the chairs. *'Only one damn iron man can do
dat. One hundred poun' more — my frien', not ten poun'
more."

The sacks were unlashed, but when two sacks were added,
Kearns interfered.

"Only one sack more."

"Two!" some one cried. "Two was the bet."

"They didn't lift that last sack," Kearns protested.

"They only lifted seven hundred and fifty."

But Daylight grandly brushed aside the confusion.

"What's the good of you-all botherin' around that way?
What's one more sack? If I can't lift three more, I sure
can't lift two. Put 'em in."

He stood upon the chairs, squatted, and bent his shoul-
ders down till his hands closed on the rope. He shifted
his feet slightly, tautened his muscles with a tentative pull,
then relaxed again, questing for a perfect adjustment of all
the levers of his body.

French Louis, looking on sceptically, cried out: —

"Pool lak hell. Daylight! Pool lak hell!"

Daylight's muscles tautened a second time, and this time
in earnest, until steadily all the energy of his splendid body
was applied, and quite imperceptibly, without jerk or strain,
the bulky nine hundred pounds rose from the floor and
swung back and forth, pendulum like, between his legs.

Olaf Henderson sighed a vast audible sigh. The Virgin,
who had tensed unconsciously till her muscles hurt her,
relaxed. While French Louis murmured reverently: —

"M'sieu Daylight, salutf Ay am one beeg baby. You
are one beeg man."

Daylight dropped his burden, leaped to the floor, and
headed for the bar.

"Weigh in!" he cried, tossing his sack to the weigher,

20 BURNING DAYLIGHT

who transferred to it four hundred dollars from the sacks of
the two losers.

"Surge up, everybody!" DayHght went on. "Name
your snake-juice ! The winner pays ! "

"This is my night!" he was shouting, ten minutes later.
"I'm the lone he-wolf, and I've seen thirty winters. This
is my birthday, my one day in the year, and I can put any
man on his back. Come on, you-all! I'm going to put
you-all in the snow. Come on, you chechaquos ^ and sour-
doughs,^ and get your baptism!"

The rout streamed out of doors, all save the barkeepers
and the singing Bacchuses. Some fleeting thought of
saving his own dignity entered MacDonald's head, for he
approached Daylight with outstretched hand.

"What? You first?" Daylight laughed, clasping the
other's hand as if in greeting.

"No, no," the other hurriedly disclaimed. "Just con-
gratulations on your birthday. Of course you can put me
in the snow. What chance have I against a man that lifts
nine hundred pounds?"

MacDonald weighed one hundred and eighty pounds,
and Daylight had him gripped solely by his hand; yet, by
a sheer abrupt jerk, he took the saloon-keeper off his feet
and flung him face downward in the snow. In quick suc-
cession, seizing the men nearest him, he threw half a dozen
more. Resistance was useless. They flew helter-skelter
out of his grips, landing in all manner of attitudes, gro-
tesquely and harmlessly, in the soft snow. It soon became
difficult, in the dim starlight, to distinguish between those
thrown and those waiting their turn, and he began feehng
their backs and shoulders, determining their status by
whether or not he found them powdered with snow.

"Baptized yet?" became his stereotyped question, as he
reached out his terrible hands.

1 Tenderfeet. 2 Old-timers.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 27

Several score lay down in the snow in a long row, while
many others knelt in mock humility, scooping snow upon
their heads and claiming the rite accomplished. But a
group of five stood upright — backwoodsmen and fron-
tiersmen, they, eager to contest any man's birthday.

Graduates of the hardest of man-handling schools, veter-
ans of multitudes of rough-and-tumble battles, men of
blood and sweat and endurance, they nevertheless lacked
one thing that Daylight possessed in high degree — namely,
an almost perfect brain and muscular coordination. It
was simple, in its way, and no virtue of his. He had been
born with this endowment. His nerves carried messages
more quickly than theirs; his mental processes, culminating
in acts of will, were quicker than theirs; his muscles them-
selves, by some immediacy of chemistry, obeyed the mes-
sages of his will quicker than theirs. He was so made.
His muscles were high-power explosives. The levers of his
body snapped into play like the jaws of steel traps. And
in addition to all this, his was that super-strength that is
the dower of but one human in millions — a strength de-
pending not on size but on degree, a supreme organic excel-
lence residing in the stuff of the muscles themselves. Thus,
so swiftly could he apply a stress, that, before an opponent
could become aware and resist, the aim of the stress had
been accomplished. In turn, so swiftly did he become
aware of a stress applied to him, that he saved himself by
resistance or by delivering a lightning counter-stress.

"It ain't no use you-all standing there," Daylight ad-
dressed the waiting group. "You-all might as well get
right down and take your baptizing. You-all might down
me any other day in the year, but on my birthday I want
you-all to know I'm the best man. Is that Pat Hanra-
han's mug looking hungry and willing? Come on, Pat."

Pat Hanrahan, ex-bare-knuckle-prizefighter and rough-
house-expert, stepped forth. The two men came against

28 BURNING DAYLIGHT

each other in grips, and almost before he had exerted him-
self the Irishman found himself in the merciless vise of a
half-Nelson that buried him head and shoulders in the
snow. Joe Hines, ex-lumber-jack, came down with an
impact equal to a fall from a two-story building — his
overthrow accomplished by a cross-buttock, delivered, he
claimed, before he was ready.

There was nothing exhausting in all this to Daylight.
He did not heave and strain through long minutes. No
time, practically, was occupied. His body exploded
abruptly and terrifically in one instant, and on the next
instant was relaxed. Thus, Doc Watson, the gray-bearded,
iron bodied man without a past, a fighting terror himself,
was overthrown in the fraction of a second preceding his
own onslaught. As he was in the act of gathering himself
for a spring, Daylight was upon him, and with such fearful
suddenness as to crush him backward and down. Olaf
Henderson, receiving his cue from this, attempted to take
Daylight unaware, rushing upon him from one side as
he stooped with extended hand to help Doc Watson up.
Daylight dropped on his hands and knees, receiving in his
side Olaf's knees. Olaf 's momentum carried him clear over
the obstruction in a long, flying fall. Before he could rise,
Daylight had whirled him over on his back and was rubbing
his face and ears with snow and shoving handfuls down
his neck.

"Ay ban yust as good a man as you ban. Daylight,"
Olaf spluttered, as he pulled himself to his feet; "but by
Yupiter, I ban nawer see a grip Hke that."

French Louis was the last of the five, and he had seen
enough to make him cautious. He circled and baffled for
a full minute before coming to grips; and for another full
minute they strained and reeled without either winning
the advantage. And then, just as the contest was becom-
ing interesting, Daylight effected one of his lightning shifts,

BURNING DAYLIGHT 29

changing all stresses and leverages and at the same time
delivering one of his muscular explosions. French Louis
resisted till his huge frame crackled, and then, slowly, was
forced over and under and downward.

"The winner pays!" Daylight cried, as he sprang to his
feet and led the way back into the Tivoli. "Surge along,
you-all! This way to the snake-room!"

They lined up against the long bar, in places two or three
deep, stamping the frost from their moccasined feet, for
outside the temperature was sixty below. Bettles, himself
one of the gamest of the old-timers in deeds and daring,
ceased from his drunken lay of the "Sassafras Root," and
titubated over to congratulate Daylight. But in the midst
of it he felt impelled to make a speech, and raised his voice
oratorically.

"I tell you fellers I'm plum proud to call Daylight my
friend. We've hit the trail together afore now, and he^s
eighteen carat from his moccasins up, damn his mangy old
hide, anyway. He was a shaver when he first hit this
country. When you fellers was his age, you wa'n't dry
behind the ears yet. He never was no kid. He was born
a full-grown man. An' I tell you a man had to be a man in
them days. This wa'n't no effete civilization like it's come
to be now." Bettles paused long enough to put his arm in
a proper bear-hug around Daylight's neck. "When you an*
me mushed ^ into the Yukon in the good ole days, it didn't
rain soup and they wa'n't no free-lunch joints. Our camp-
fires was lit where we killed our game, and most of the
time we lived on salmon-tracks and rabbit-bellies — ain't
I right?"

But at the roar of laughter that greeted his inversion,
Bettles released the bear-hug and turned fiercely on the
crowd.

"Laugh, you mangy short-horns, laugh! But I tell you

^ Drove dogs; travelled.

3© BURNING DAYLIGHT

plain and simple, the best of you ain't knee-high fit to
tie Daylight's moccasin strings. Ain't I right, Campbell?
Ain't I right, Mac? Dayhght's one of the old guard, one of
the real sour-doughs. And in them days they wa'n't ary a
steamboat or ary a trading-post, and we cusses had to live
offen salmon-bellies and rabbit-tracks."

He gazed triumphantly around, and in the applause that
followed arose cries for a speech from Dayhght. He sig-
nified his consent. A chair was brought, and he was helped
to stand upon it. He was no more sober than the crowd
above which he now towered — a wild crowd, uncouthly
garmented, every foot moccasined or muc-lucked,^ with
mittens dangling from necks and with furry ear-flaps raised
so that they took on the seeming of the winged helmets of
the Norsemen. Daylight's black eyes were flashing, and
the flush of strong drink flooded darkly under the bronze
of his cheeks. He was greeted with round on round of
affectionate cheers, which brought a suspicious moisture to
his eyes, albeit many of the voices were inarticulate and
inebriate. And yet, men have so behaved since the world
began, feasting, fighting, and carousing, whether in the dark
cave-mouth or by the fire of the squatting-place, in the
palaces of imperial Rome and the rock strongholds of robber
barons, or in the sky-aspiring hotels of modern times and in
the boozing-kens of sailor-town. Just so were these men,
empire-builders in the Arctic night, boastful and drunken
and clamorous, winning surcease for a few wild moments
from the grim reality of their heroic toil. Modern heroes
they, and in nowise different from the heroes of old time.

"Well, fellows, I don't know what to say to you-all,"
Daylight began lamely, striving still to control his whirl-
ing brain. "I think I'll tell you-all a story. I had a pard-
ner wunst, down in Juneau. He come from North Caro-

1 Muc-luc : a water-tight, Eskimo boot, made from walrus-hide and
trimmed with fur.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 3 1

liney, and he used to tell this same story to me. It was
down in the mountains in his country, and it was a wed-
ding. There they was, the family and all the friends. The
parson was just puttin' on the last touches, and he says,
'They as the Lord have jined let no man put asunder.'

" 'Parson,' says the bridegroom, 'I rises to question your
grammar in that there sentence. I want this weddin' done
right.'

"When the smoke clears away, the bride she looks around
and sees a dead parson, a dead bridegroom, a dead brother,
two dead uncles, and five dead wedding-guests.

"So she heaves a mighty strong sigh and says, 'Them
new-fangled, self-cocking revolvers sure has played hell with
my prospects.'

"And so I say to you-all," Daylight added, as the roar of
laughter died down, "that them four kings of Jack Kearns
sure has played hell with my prospects. I'm busted higliei 'n
a kite, and I'm hittin' the trail for Dyea — "

"Goin' out?" some one called.

A spasm of anger wrought on his face for a flashing in-
stant, but in the next his good-humor was back again.

"I know you-all are only pokin' fun asking such a ques-
tion," he said, with a smile. "Of course I ain't going out."

"Take the oath again. Daylight," the same voice cried.

"I sure will. I first come over Chilcoot in '83. I went
out over the Pass in a fall blizzard, with a rag of a shirt and
a cup of raw flour. I got my grub-stake in Juneau that
winter, and in the spring I went over the Pass once more.
And once more the famine drew me out. Next spring I went
in again, and I swore then that I'd never come out till I made
my stake. Well, I ain't made it, and here I am. And I
ain't going out now. I get the mail and I come right back.
I won't stop the night at Dyea. I'll hit up Chilcoot soon as
I change the dogs and get the mail and grub. And so I
swear once more, by the mill-tails of hell and the head of

32 BURNING DAYLIGHT

John the Baptist, I'll never hit for the Outside till I make
my pile. And I tell you-all, here and now, it's got to be an
almighty big pile."

"How much might you call a pile?" Bettles demanded
from beneath, his arms clutched lovingly around Daylight's
legs.

"Yes, how much? What do you call a pile?" others
cried.

DayUght steadied himself for a moment and debated.

"Four or five millions," he said slowly, and held up his
hand for silence as his statement was received with derisive
yells. "I'll be real conservative, and put the bottom notch
at a million. And for not an ounce less'n that will I go
out of the country."

Again his statement was received with an outburst of
derision. Not only had the total gold output of the Yukon
up to date been below five millions, but no man had ever
made a strike of a hundred thousand, much less of a million.

"You-all listen to me. You seen Jack Kearns get a
hunch to-night. We had him sure beat before the draw.
His ornery three kings was no good. But he just knew
there was another king coming — that was his hunch —
and he got it. And I tell you-all I got a hunch. There's
a big strike coming on the Yukon, and it's just about due.
I don't mean no ornery Moosehide, Birch-Creek kind of a
strike. I mean a real rip-snorter hair-raiser. I tell you-all
she's in the air and hell-bent for election. Nothing can
stop her, and she'll come up river. There's where you-all '11
track my moccasins in the near future if you-all want
to find me — somewhere in the country around Stewart
River, Indian River, and Klondike River. When I get
back with the mail, I'll head that way so fast you-all won't
see my trail for smoke. She's a-coming, fellows, gold from
the grass roots down, a hundred dollars to the pan, and a
stampede in from the Outside fifty thousand strong. You-

BURNING DAYLIGHT 33

all '11 think all hell's busted loose when that strike is
made."

He raised his glass to his lips.

"Here's kindness, and hoping you-all '11 be in on it.'^

He drank and stepped down from the chair, falling inta
another one of Bettles' bear-hugs.

"If I was you, Daylight, I wouldn't mush to-day," Joe
Hines counselled, coming in from consulting the spirit
thermometer outside the door. "We're in for a good cold
snap. It's sixty-two below now, and still goin' down.
Better wait till she breaks."

Daylight laughed, and the old sour-doughs around him
laughed.

"Just like you short-horns," Bettles cried, "afeard of a
little frost. And blamed Httle you know Daylight, if you
think frost kin stop 'm."

"Freeze his lungs if he travels in it," was the reply.

"Freeze pap and loUypop! Look here, Hines, you only
ben in this here country three years. You ain't seasoned
yet. I've seen Daylight do fifty miles up on the Koyokuk
on a day when the thermometer busted at seventy-two."

Hines shook his head dolefully.

"Them's the kind that does freeze their lungs," he la-
mented. "If Daylight pulls out before this snap breaks, he'll
never get through — an' him travelin' without tent or fly."

"It's a thousand miles to Dyea," Bettles announced,
climbing on the chair and supporting his swaying body by
an arm passed around Daylight's neck. "It's a thousand
miles, I'm sayin', an' most of the trail unbroke, but I bet
any chechaquo — anything he wants — that Daylight
makes Dyea in thirty days."

"That's an average of over thirty-three miles a day,"
Doc Watson warned, "and I've travelled some myself.
A blizzard on Chilcoot would tie him up for a week."

"Yep," Bettles retorted, "an' Daylight '11 do the second

34 BURNING DAYLIGHT

thousand back again on end in thirty days more, and I got
five hundred dollars that says so, and damn the blizzards."

To emphasize his remarks, he pulled out a gold-sack the
size of a bologna sausage and thumped it down on the bar.
Doc Watson thumped his own sack alongside.

"Hold on!" Daylight cried. "Bettles's right, and I want
in on this. I bet five hundred that sixty days from now
I pull up at the Tivoli door with the Dyea mail."

A sceptical roar went up, and a dozen men pulled out
their sacks. Jack Kearns crowded in close and caught
Daylight's attention.

"I take you, Daylight," he cried. "Two to one you
don't — not in seventy-five days."

"No charity. Jack," was the reply. "The bettin's even,
and the time is sixty days."

"Seventy-five days, and two to one you don't," Kearns
insisted. "Fifty Mile '11 be wide open and the rim-ice
rotten."

"What you win from me is yours," Daylight went on.
"And, by thunder, Jack, you can't give it back that way.
I won't bet with you. You're trying to give me money.
But I tell you-all one thing. Jack, I got another hunch.
I'm goin' to win it back some one of these days. You-all
just wait till the big strike up river. Then you and me'U
take the roof off and sit in a game that'll be full man's size.
Is it a go?"

They shook hands.

"Of course he'll make it," Kearns whispered in Bettles'
ear. "And there's five hundred Daylight's back in sixty
days," he added aloud.

Billy Rawlins closed with the wager, and Bettles hugged
Kearns ecstatically.

"By Yupiter, I ban take that bet," Olaf Henderson said,
dragging Daylight away from Bettles and Kearns.

"Winner pays!" Daylight shouted, closing the wager.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 35

"And I'm sure going to win, and sixty days is a long time
between drinks, so I pay now. Name your brand, you
hoochinoos! Name your brand 1"

Bettles, a glass of whiskey in hand, climbed back on his
chair, and swaying back and forth, sang the one song he
knew: —

"0, it's Henry Ward Beecher
And Sunday-school teachers

All sing of the sassafras-root;
But you bet all the same,
If it had its right name,

It's the juice of the forbidden fruit."

The crowd roared out the chorus: —

"But you bet all the same.
If it had its right name,

It's the juice of the forbidden fruit."

Somebody opened the outer door. A vague gray light
filtered in.

"Burning daylight, burning daylight," some one called
warningly.

Dayhght paused for nothing, heading for the door and
pulling down his ear-flaps. Kama stood outside by the
sled, a long, narrow affair, sixteen inches wide and seven
and a half feet in length, its slatted bottom raised six inches
above the steel-shod runners. On it, lashed with thongs of
moose-hide, were the light canvas bags that contained the
mail, and the food and gear for dogs and men. In front of
it, in a single line, lay curled five frost-rimed dogs. They
were huskies,^ matched in size and color, all unusually large
and all gray. From their cruel jaws to their bushy tails
they were as like as peas in their likeness to timber-v/olves.
Wolves they were, domesticated, it was true, but wolves in
appearance and in all their characteristics. On top the sled

1 Husky: a wolf-dog of tremendous strength, endurance, viciousness,
and sagacity.

3 6 BURNING DAYLIGHT

load, thrust under the lashings and ready for immediate
use, were two pairs of snowshoes.

Bettles pointed to a robe of Arctic hare skins, the end of
which showed in the mouth of a bag.

"That's his bed," he said. "Six pounds of rabbit skins.
Warmest thing he ever slept under, but I'm damned if it
could keep me warm, and I can go some myself. Day-
light's a hell-fire furnace, that's what he is."

"I'd hate to be that Indian," Doc Watson remarked.

"He'll kill 'm, he'll kill 'm sure," Bettles chanted exul-
tantly. "I know. I've ben with Daylight on trail. That
man ain't never ben tired in his life. Don't know what it
means. I seen him travel all day with wet socks at forty-
five below. There ain't another man living can do that."

While this talk went on, Daylight was saying good-by
to those that clustered around him. The Virgin wanted
to kiss him, and, fuddled slightly though he was with the
whiskey, he saw his way out without compromising with
the apron-string. He kissed the Virgin, but he kissed the
other three women with equal partiality. He pulled on his
long mittens, roused the dogs to their feet, and took his
place at the gee-pole.^

"Mush, you beauties! " he cried.

The animals threw their weights against their breast-
bands on the instant, crouching low to the snow and digging
in their claws. They whined eagerly, and before the sled
had gone half a dozen lengths both Daylight and Kama
(in the rear) were running to keep up. And so, running,
man and dogs dipped over the bank and down to the frozen
bed of the Yukon, and in the gray light were gone.

1 A gee-pole: a stout pole projecting forward from one side of the
front end of the sled, by which the sled is steered.

CHAPTER IV

On the river, where was a packed trail and where snow-
shoes were unnecessary, the dogs averaged six miles an hour.
To keep up with them, the two men were compelled to run.
Daylight and Kama relieved each other regularly at the
gee-pole, for here was the hard work of steering the flying
sled and of keeping in advance of it. The man relieved
dropped behind the sled, occasionally leaping upon it and
resting.

It was severe work, but of the sort that was exhilarating.

They were flying, getting over the ground, making the
most of the packed trail. Later on they would come to the
unbroken trail, where three miles an hour would constitute
good going. Then there would be no riding and resting,
and no running. Then the gee-pole would be the easier
task, and a man would come back to it to rest after having
completed his spell to the fore, breaking trail with the snow-
shoes for the dogs. Such work was far from exhilarating.
Also, they must expect places where for miles at a time they
must toil over chaotic ice- jams, where they would be for-
tunate if they made two miles an hour. And there would
be the inevitable bad jams, short ones, it was true, but so
bad that a mile an hour would require terrific effort.

Kama and Daylight did not talk. In the nature of the
work they could not, nor in their own natures were they
given to talking while they worked. At rare intervals,
when necessary, they addressed each other in monosylla-
bles, Kama, for the most part, contenting himself with
grunts. Occasionally a dog whined or snarled, but in the

37

38 BURNING DAYLIGHT

main the team kept silent. Only could be heard the sharp,
jarring grate of the steel runners over the hard surface
and the creak of the straining sled.

As if through a wall, Daylight had passed from the hum
and roar of the Tivoli into another world — a world of
silence and immobility. Nothing stirred. The Yukon
slept under a coat of ice three feet thick. No breath of
wind blew. Nor did the sap move in the hearts of the
spruce trees that forested the river banks on either hand.
The trees, burdened with the last infinitesimal pennyweight
of snow their branches could hold, stood in absolute petri-
faction. The slightest tremor would have dislodged the
snow, and no snow was dislodged. The sled was the one
point of life and motion in the midst of the solemn quietude,
and the harsh churn of its runners but emphasized the
silence through which it moved.

It was a dead world, and furthermore, a gray world.
The weather was sharp and clear; there was no moisture
in the atmosphere, no fog nor haze ; yet the sky was a gray
pall. The reason for this was that, though there was no
cloud in the sky to dim the brightness of day, there was no
sun to give brightness. Far to the south the sun chmbed
steadily to meridian, but between it and the frozen Yukon
intervened the bulge of the earth. The Yukon lay in a
night shadow, and the day itself was in reality a long twi-
light. At a quarter before twelve, where a wide bend of
the river gave a long vista south, the sun showed its upper
rim above the sky-line. But it did not rise perpendicularly.
Instead, it rose on a slant, so that by high noon it had barely
lifted its lower rim clear of the horizon. It was a dim, wan
sun. There was no heat to its rays, and a man could gaze
squarely into the full orb of it without hurt to his eyes.
No sooner had it reached meridian than it began its slant
back beneath the horizon, and at quarter past twelve the
earth threw its shadow again over the land.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 39

The men and dogs raced on. Daylight and Kama were
both savages so far as their stomachs were concerned.
They could eat irregularly in time and quantity, gorging
hugely on occasion, and on occasion going long stretches
without eating at all. As for the dogs, they ate but once a
day, and then rarely did they receive more than a pound
each of dried fish. They were ravenously hungry and at
the same time splendidly in condition. Like the wolves,
their forebears, their nutritive processes were rigidly eco-
nomical and perfect. There was no waste. The last
least particle of what they consumed was transformed into
energy. And Kama and Daylight were like them. De-
scended themselves from the generations that had eadured,
they, too, endured. Theirs was the simple, elemental
economy. A little food equipped them with prodigious
energy. Nothing was lost. A man of soft civilization,
sitting at a desk, would have grown lean and woe-begone
on the fare that kept Kama and Daylight at the top-notch of
physical efficiency. They knew, as the man at the desk
never knows, what it is to be normally hungry all the time,
so that they could eat any time. Their appetites were
always with them and on edge, so that they bit voraciously
into whatever offered and with an entire innocence of indi-
gestion.

By three in the afternoon the long twilight faded into
night. The stars came out, very near and sharp and bright,
and by their light dogs and men still kept the trail. They
were indefatigable. And this was no record run of a single
day, but the first day of sixty such days. Though Day-
light had passed a night without sleep, a night of dancing
and carouse, it seemed to have left no effect. For this
there were two explanations: first, his remarkable vitality;
and next, the fact that such nights were rare in his expe-
rience. Again enters the man at the desk, whose physical
efficiency would be more hurt by a cup of coffee at bedtime

40 BURNING DAYLIGHT

than could Daylight's by a whole night long of strong drink
and excitement.

Daylight travelled without a watch, feeling the passage
of time and largely estimating it by subconscious processes.
By what he considered must be six o'clock, he began look-
ing for a camping-place. The trail, at a bend, plunged out
across the river. Not having found a likely spot, they held
on for the opposite bank a mile away. But midway they
encountered an ice- jam which took an hour of heavy work
to cross. At last Daylight glimpsed what he was looking
for, a dead tree close by the bank. The sled was run in
and up. Kama grunted with satisfaction, and the work of
making camp was begun.

The division of labor was excellent. Each knew what he
must do. With one axe Daylight chopped down the dead
pine. Kama, with a snowshoe and the other axe, cleared
away the two feet of snow above the Yukon ice and chopped
a supply of ice for cooking purposes. A piece of dry birch
bark started the fire, and Daylight went ahead with the
cooking while the Indian unloaded the sled and fed the dogs
their ration of dried fish. The food sacks he slung high
in the trees beyond leaping-reach of the huskies. Next,
he chopped down a young spruce tree and trimmed off the
boughs. Close to the fire he trampled down the soft snow
and covered the packed space with the boughs. On this
flooring he tossed his own and Daylight's gear -bags, con-
taining dry socks and underwear and their sleeping-robes.
Kama, however, had two robes of rabbit skin to Daylight's
one.

They worked on steadily, without speaking, losing no
time. Each did whatever was needed, without thought of
leaving to the other the least task that presented itself to
hand. Thus, Kama saw when more ice was needed and
went and got it, while a snowshoe, pushed over by the
lunge of a dog, was stuck on end again by Dayhght. While

BURNING DAYLIGHT 41

coffee was boiling, bacon drying, and flapjacks were being
mixed. Daylight found time to put on a big pot of beans.
Kama came back, sat down on the edge of the spruce
boughs, and in the interval of waiting, mended harness.

''I t'ink dat Skookum and Booga make um plenty fight
maybe," Kama remarked, as they sat down to eat.

"Keep an eye on them," was Dayhght's answer.

And this was their sole conversation throughout the
meal. Once, with a muttered imprecation, Kama leaped
away, a stick of firewood in hand, and clubbed apart a
tangle of fighting dogs. Daylight, between mouthfuls, fed
chunks of ice into the tin pot, where it thawed into water.
The meal finished, Kama replenished the fire, cut more
wood for the morning, and returned to the spruce bough
bed and his harness-mending. Daylight cut up generous
chunks of bacon and dropped them in the pot of bubbling
beans. The moccasins of both men were wet, and this in
spite of the intense cold ; so when there was no further need
for them to leave the oasis of spruce boughs, they took
off their moccasins and hung them on short sticks to dry
before the fire, turning them about from time to time.
When the beans were finally cooked, Daylight ran part of
them into a bag of flour-sacking a foot and a half long and
three inches in diameter. This he then laid on the snow to
freeze. The remainder of the beans were left in the pot for
breakfast.

It was past nine o'clock, and they were ready for bed.
The squabbling and bickering among the dogs had long
since died down, and the weary animals were curled in the
snow, each with his feet and nose bunched together and
covered by his wolf's brush of a tail. Kama spread his
sleeping-furs and lighted his pipe. Daylight rolled a brown-
paper cigarette, and the second conversation of the
evening took place.

'T think we come near sixty miles," said Daylight.

42 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"Um, I t'ink so," said Kama.

They rolled into their robes, all-standing, each with a
woollen Mackinaw jacket on in place of the parkas ^ they
had worn all day. Swiftly, almost on the instant they
closed their eyes, they were asleep. The stars leaped
and danced in the frosty air, and overhead the colored
bars of the aurora borealis were shooting like great search-
lights.

In the darkness Daylight awoke and roused Kama.
Though the aurora still flamed, another day had begun.
Warmed-over flapjacks, warmed-over beans, fried bacon,
and coffee composed the breakfast. The dogs got nothing,
though they watched with wistful mien from a distance,
sitting up in the snow, their tails curled around their paws.
Occasionally they lifted one fore paw or the other, ^vith a
restless movement, as if the frost tingled in their feet. It
was bitter cold, at least sixty-five below zero, and when
Kama harnessed the dogs with naked hands he was com-
pelled several times to go over to the fire and warm the
numbing finger-tips. Together the two men loaded and
lashed the sled. They warmed their hands for the last
time, pulled on their mittens, and mushed the dogs over the
bank and down to the river-trail. According to Daylight's
estimate, it was around seven o'clock; but the stars danced
just as brilliantly, and faint, luminous streaks of greenish
aurora still pulsed overhead.

Two hours later it became suddenly dark — so dark
that they kept to the trail largely by instinct; and Day-
light knew that his time-estimate had been right. It was
the darkness before dawn, never anywhere more conspicu-
ous than on the Alaskan wdnter-trail. Slowly the gray light
came stealing through the gloom, imperceptibly at first,
so that it was almost with surprise that they noticed the
vague loom of the trail underfoot. Next, they were able

'^ Parka: a light, hooded, smock-like garment made of cotton drill.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 43

to see the wheel-dog, and then the whole string of running
dogs and snow-stretches on either side. Then the near
bank loomed for a moment and was gone, loomed a second
time and remained. In a few minutes the far bank, a mile
away, unobtrusively came into view, and ahead and behind,
the whole frozen river could be seen, with off to the left
a wide-extending range of sharp-cut, snow-covered moun-
tains. And that was all. No sun arose. The gray light
remained gray.

Once, during the day, a lynx leaped lightly across the
trail, under the very nose of the lead-dog, and vanished in
the white woods. The dogs' wild impulses roused. They
raised the hunting-cry of the pack, surged against their
collars, and swerved aside in pursuit. Daylight, yelling
"Whoa!" struggled with the gee-pole and managed to
overturn the sled into the soft snow. The dogs gave
up, the sled was righted, and five minutes later they were
flying along the hard-packed trail again. The lynx was
the only sign of life they had seen in two days, and it,
leaping velvet-footed and vanishing, had been more like an
apparition.

At twelve o'clock, when the sun peeped over the earth-
bulge, they stopped and built a small fire on the ice. Day-
light, with the axe, chopped chunks off the frozen sausage
of beans. These, thawed and warmed in the frying-pan,
constituted their meal. They had no coffee. He did not
believe in the burning of daylight for such a luxury. The
dogs stopped wrangling with one another, and looked on
wistfully. Only at night did they get their pound of fish.
In the meantime they worked.

The cold snap continued. Only men of iron kept the
trail at such low temperatures, and Kama and Daylight
were picked men of their races. But Kama knew the other
was the better man, and thus, at the start, he was himself
foredoomed to defeat. Not that he slackened his effort or

44 BURNING DAYLIGHT

willingness by the slightest conscious degree, but that he was
beaten by the burden he carried in his mind. His attitude
toward Daylight was worshipful. Stoical, taciturn, proud
of his physical prowess, he found all these qualities incar-
nated in his white companion. Here was one that excelled
in the things worth excelHng in, a man-god ready to hand,
and Kama could not but worship — withal he gave no signs
of it. No wonder the race of white men conquered, was his
thought, when it bred men like this man. WTiat chance had
the Indian against such a dogged, enduring breed? Even
the Indians did not travel at such low temperatures, and
theirs was the wisdom of thousands of generations; yet
here was this Daylight, from the soft Southland, harder
than they, laughing at their fears, and swinging along the
trail ten and twelve hours a day. And this Daylight
thought that he could keep up a day's pace of thirty-three
miles for sixty days! Wait till a fresh fall of snow came
down, or they struck the unbroken trail or the rotten rim-
ice that fringed open water.

In the meantime Kama kept the pace, never grumbling,
never shirking. Sixty-five degrees below zero is very cold.
Since water freezes at thirty-two above, sixty-five below
meant ninety-seven degrees below freezing-point. Some
idea of the significance of this may be gained by conceiv-
ing of an equal difference of temperature in the opposite
direction. One hundred and twenty-nine on the ther-
mometer constitutes a very hot day, yet such a tempera-
ture is but ninety-seven degrees above freezing. Double
this difference, and possibly some slight conception may
be gained of the cold through which Kama and Daylight
travelled between dark and dark and through the dark.

Kama froze the skin on his cheek-bones, despite frequent
rubbings, and the flesh turned black and sore. Also he
slightly froze the edges of his lung-tissues — a dangerous
thing, and the basic reason why a man should not unduly

BURNING DAYLIGHT 45

exert himself in the open at sixty-five below. But Kama
never complained, and Daylight was a furnace of heat,
sleeping as warmly under his six pounds of rabbit skins as
the other did under twelve pounds.

On the second night, fifty more miles to the good, they
camped in the vicinity of the boundary between Alaska and
the Northwest Territory. The rest of the journey, save the
last short stretch to Dyea, would be travelled on Canadian
territory. With the hard trail, and in the absence of fresh
snow. Daylight planned to make the camp of Forty Mile
on the fourth night. He told Kama as much, but on the
third day the temperature began to rise, and they knew
snow was not far off; for on the Yukon it must get warm in
order to snow. Also, on this day, they encountered ten
miles of chaotic ice-jams, where, a thousand times, they
lifted the loaded sled over the huge cakes by the strength
of their arms and lowered it down again. Here the dogs
were well-nigh useless, and both they and the men were
tried excessively by the roughness of the way. An hour's
extra running that night caught up only part of the lost
time.

In the morning they awoke to find ten inches of snow on
their robes. The dogs were buried under it and were loath
to leave their comfortable nests. This new snow meant
hard going. The sled runners would not slide over it so
well, while one of the men must go in advance of the dogs
and pack it down with snowshoes so that they should not
wallow. Quite different was it from the ordinary snow
known to those of the Southland. It was hard, and fine,
and dry. It was more like sugar. Kick it, and it flew
with a hissing noise like sand. There was no cohesion
among the particles, and it could not be moulded into snow-
balls. It was not composed of flakes, but of crystals —
tiny, geometrical frost-crystals. In truth, it was not snow,
but frost.

46 BURNING DAYLIGHT

The weather was warm, as well, barely twenty below
zero, and the two men, with raised ear-flaps and danghng
mittens, sweated as they toiled. They failed to make Forty
Mile that night, and when they passed that camp next day
Daylight paused only long enough to get the mail and addi-
tional grub. On the afternoon of the following day they
camped at the mouth of the Klondike River. Not a soul
had they encountered since Forty Mile, and they had made
their own trail. As yet, that winter, no one had travelled
the river south of Forty Mile, and, for that matter, the whole
winter through they might be the only ones to travel it.
In that day the Yukon was a lonely land. Between the
Klondike River and Salt Water at Dyea intervened six
hundred miles of snow-covered wilderness, and in all that
distance there were but two places where Daylight might
look forward to meeting men. Both were isolated trading'
posts, Sixty Mile and Fort Selkirk. In the summer-time
Indians might be met with at the mouths of the Stewart
and White rivers, at the Big and Little Salmons, and on
Lake Le Barge; but in the winter, as he well knew, they
would be on the trail of the moose-herds, following them
back into the mountains.

That night, camped at the mouth of the Klondike, Day-
light did not turn in when the evening's work was done.
Had a white man been present. Daylight would have re-
marked that he felt his "hunch" working. As it was, he
tied on his snowshoes, left the dogs curled in the snow and
Kama breathing heavily under his rabbit skins, and climbed
up to the big flat above the high earth-bank. But the
spruce trees were too thick for an outlook, and he threaded
his way across the flat and up the first steep slopes of the
mountain at the back. Here, flowing in from the east at
right angles, he could see the Klondike, and, bending
grandly from the south, the Yukon. To the left, and down-
stream, toward Moosehide Mountain, the huge splash of

BURNING DAYLIGHT 47

white, from which it took its name, showing clearly in the
starlight. Lieutenant Schwatka had given it its name, but
he, Daylight, had first seen it long before that intrepid
explorer had crossed the Chilcoot and rafted down the
Yukon.

But the mountain received only passing notice. Day-
light's interest was centred in the big flat itself, with deep
water all along its edge for steamboat landings.

"A sure enough likely town site," he muttered. "Room
for a camp of forty thousand men. All that's needed is the
gold-strike." He meditated for a space. "Ten dollars
to the pan '11 do it, and it'd be the all-firedest stampede
Alaska ever seen. And if it don't come here, it'll come
somewhere hereabouts. It's a sure good idea to keep an
eye out for town sites all the way up."

He stood a while longer, gazing out over the lonely fiat
and visioning with constructive imagination the scene if
the stampede did come. In fancy, he placed the sawmills,
the big trading stores, the saloons, and dance-halls, and the
long streets of miners' cabins. And along those streets he
saw thousands of men passing up and down, while before
the stores were the heavy freighting-sleds, with long strings
of dogs attached. Also he saw the heavy freighters pulling
down the main street and heading up the frozen Klondike
toward the imagined somewhere where the diggings must
be located.

He laughed and shook the vision from his eyes, descended
to the level, and crossed the flat to camp. Five minutes
after he had rolled up in his robe, he opened his eyes and sat
up, amazed that he was not already asleep. He glanced at
the Indian sleeping beside him, at the embers of the dying
fire, at the five dogs beyond, with their wolf's brushes
curled over their noses, and at the four snowshoes standing
upright in the snow.

"It's sure hell the way that hunch works on me,'*

48 BURNING DAYLIGHT

he murmured. His mind reverted to the poker game.
"Four kings!" He grinned reminiscently. "That was a
hunch!"

He lay down again, pulled the edge of the robe around
his neck and over his ear-flaps, closed his eyes, and this
time fell asleep.

CHAPTER V

At Sixty Mile they restocked provisions, added a few
pounds of letters to their load, and held steadily on. From
Forty Mile they had had unbroken trail, and they could look
forward only to unbroken trail clear to Dyea. Daylight
stood it magnificently, but the killing pace was beginning
to tell on Kama. His pride kept his mouth shut, but the
result of the chilling of his lungs in the cold snap could not
be concealed. Microscopically small had been the edges
of the lung-tissue touched by the frost, but they now began
to slough off, giving rise to a dry, hacking cough. Any
unusually severe exertion precipitated spells of coughing,
during which he was almost like a man in a fit. The blood
congested in his eyes till they bulged, while the tears ran
down his cheeks. A whiff of the smoke from frjdng bacon
would start him off for a half -hour's paroxysm, and he kept
carefully to windward when Daylight was cooking.

They plodded days upon days and without end over
the soft, unpacked snow. It was hard, monotonous work,
with none of the joy and blood-stir that went with flying
over hard surface. Now one man to the fore in the snow-
shoes, and now the other, it was a case of stubborn, un-
mitigated plod. A yard of powdery snow had to be pressed
down, and the wide-webbed shoe, under a man's weight,
sank a full dozen inches into the soft surface. Snowshoe
work, under such conditions, called for the use of muscles
other than those used in ordinary walking. From step to
step the rising foot could not come up and forward on a
slant. It had to be raised perpendicularly. When the
snowshoe was pressed into the snow, its nose was confronted

49

50 BURNING DAYLIGHT

by a vertical wall of snow twelve inches high. If the foot,
in rising, slanted forward the slightest bit, the nose of the
shoe penetrated the obstructing wall and tipped downward
till the heel of the shoe struck the man's leg behind. Thus
up, straight up, twelve inches, each foot must be raised
every time and all the time, ere the forward swing from the
knee could begin.

On this partially packed surface followed the dogs, the
man at the gee-pole, and the sled. At the best, toiling as
only picked men could toil, they made no more than three
miles an hour. This meant longer hours of travel, and Day-
light, for good measure and for a margin against accidents,
hit the trail for twelve hours a day. Since three hours were
consumed by making camp at night and cooking beans, by
getting breakfast in the morning and breaking camp, and
by thawing beans at the midday halt, nine hours were left
for sleep and recuperation, and neither men nor dogs wasted
many minutes of those nine hours.

At Selkirk, the trading post near Pelly River, Daylight
suggested that Kama lay over, rejoining him on the back
trip from Dyea. A strayed Indian from Lake Le Barge was
willing to take his place; but Kama was obdurate. He
grunted with a slight intonation of resentment, and that
was all. The dogs, however, Daylight changed, leaving his
own exhausted team to rest up against his return, while he
went on with six fresh dogs.

They travelled till ten o'clock the night they reached
Selkirk, and at six next morning they plunged ahead into
the next stretch of wilderness of nearly five hundred miles
that lay between Selkirk and Dyea. A second cold snap
came on, but cold or warm it was all the same, an unbroken
trail. When the thermometer went down to fifty below, it
was even harder to travel, for at that low temperature the
hard frost-crystals were more like sand-grains in the resist-
ance they offered to the sled runners. The dogs had to

BURNING DAYLIGHT $1

pull harder than over the same snow at twenty or thirty
below zero. Daylight increased the day's travel to thirteen
hours. He jealously guarded the margin he had gained, for
he knew there were difficult stretches to come.

It was not yet quite midwinter, and the turbulent Fifty
Mile River vindicated his judgment. In many places it
ran wide open, with precarious rim-ice fringing it on either
side. In numerous places, where the water dashed against
the steep-sided bluffs, rim-ice was unable to form. They
turned and twisted, now crossing the river, now coming
back again, sometimes making half a dozen attempts before
they found a way over a particularly bad stretch. It was
slow work. The ice-bridges had to be tested, and either
Daylight or Kama went in advance, snowshoes on their
feet, and long poles carried crosswise in their hands. Thus,
if they broke through, they could cling to the pole that
bridged the hole made by their bodies. Several such acci-
dents were the share of each. At fifty below zero, a man
wet to the waist cannot travel without freezing; so each
ducking meant delay. As soon as rescued, the wet man
ran up and down to keep up his circulation, while his dry
companion built a fire. Thus protected, a change of gar-
ments could be made and the wet ones dried against the
next misadventure.

To make matters worse, this dangerous river travel could
not be done in the dark, and their working day was reduced
to the six hours of twilight. Every moment was precious,
and they strove never to lose one. Thus, before the first
hint of the coming of gray day, camp was broken, sled load-
ed, dogs harnessed, and the two men crouched waiting over
the fire. Nor did they make the midday halt to eat. As it
was, they were running far behind their schedule, each day
eating into the margin they had run up. There were days
when they made fifteen miles, and days when they made a
dozen. And there was one bad stretch where in two days

52 BURNING DAYLIGHT

they covered nine miles, being compelled to turn their
backs three times on the river and to portage sled and
outfit over the mountains.

At last they cleared the dread Fifty Mile River and came
out on Lake Le Barge. Here was no open water nor jammed
ice. For thirty miles or more the snow lay level as a table;
withal it lay three feet deep and was soft as flour. Three
miles an hour was the best they could make, but Daylight
celebrated the passing of the Fifty Mile by travelling late.
At eleven in the morning they emerged at the foot of the
lake. At three in the afternoon, as the Arctic night closed
down, he caught his first sight of the head of the lake, and
with the first stars took his bearings. At eight in the even-
ing they left the lake behind and entered the mouth of the
Lewes River. Here a halt of half an hour was made, while
chunks of frozen, boiled beans were thawed and the dogs
were given an extra ration of fish. Then they pulled on up
the river till one in the morning, when they made their
regular camp.

They had hit the trail sixteen hours on end that day, the
dogs had come in too tired to fight among themselves or
even snarl, and Kama had perceptibly limped the last
several miles; yet Daylight was on trail next morning at
six o'clock. By eleven he was at the foot of White Horse,
and that night saw him camped beyond the Box Canon,
the last bad river-stretch behind him, the string of lakes
before him.

There was no let up in his pace. Twelve hours a day,
six in the twilight, and six in the dark, they toiled on the
trail. Three hours were consumed in cooking, repairing
harnesses, and making and breaking camp, and the remain-
ing nine hours dogs and men slept as if dead. The iron
strength of Kama broke. Day by day the terrific toil sapped
him. Day by day he consumed more of his reserves of
strength. He became slower of movement, the resiliency

BURNING DAYLIGHT S3

went out of his muscles, and his Hmp became permanent.
Yet he labored stoically on, never shirking, never grunting a
hint of complaint. Daylight was thin-faced and tired. He
looked tired ; yet somehow, with that marvelous mechanism
of a body that was his, he drove on, ever on, remorselessly
on. Never was he more a god in Kama's mind than in the
last days of the south-bound traverse, as the failing Indian
watched him, ever to the fore, pressing onward with urgency
of endurance such as Kama had never seen nor dreamed
could thrive in human form.

The time came when Kama was unable to go in the lead
and break trail, and it was a proof that he was far gone
when he permitted Daylight to toil all day at the heavy
snowshoe work. Lake by lake they crossed the string of
lakes from Marsh to Linderman, and began the ascent of
Chilcoot. By all rights. Daylight should have camped
below the last pitch of the pass at the dim end of day;
but he kept on and over and down to Sheep Camp, while
behind him raged a snow-storm that would have delayed
him twenty-four hours.

This last excessive strain broke Kama completely. In
the morning he could not travel. At five, when called, he
sat up after a struggle, groaned, and sank back again.
Daylight did the camp work of both, harnessed the dogs,
and, when ready for the start, rolled the helpless Indian in
all three sleeping robes and lashed him on top of the sled.
The going was good; they were on the last lap; and he
raced the dogs down through Dyea Cafion and along the
hard-packed trail that led to Dyea Post. And running
still, Kama groaning on top the load, and Daylight leaping
at the gee-pole to avoid going under the runners of the
flying sled, they arrived at Dyea by the sea.

True to his promise. Daylight did not stop. An hour's
time saw the sled loaded with the ingoing mail and grub,
fresh dogs harnessed, and a fresh Indian engaged. Kama

54 BURNING DAYLIGHT

never spoke from the time of his arrival till the moment
Daylight, ready to depart, stood beside him to say good-by.
They shook hands.

"You kill um dat damn Indian," Kama said, "Sawee,
Daylight? You kill um."

"He'll sure last as far as Pelly," Daylight grinned.

Kama shook his head doubtfully, and rolled over on his
side, turning his back in token of farewell.

Daylight won across Chilcoot that same day, dropping
down five hundred feet in the darkness and the flurrying
snow to Crater Lake, where he camped. It was a "cold"
camp, far above the timber-line, and he had not burdened
his sled with firewood. That night three feet of snow
covered them, and in the black morning, when they dug
themselves out, the Indian tried to desert. He had had
enough of travelling with what he considered a madman.
But Daylight persuaded him in grim ways to stay by the
outfit, and they«pulled on across Deep Lake and Long Lake
and dropped down to the level-going of Lake Linderman.

It was the same killing pace going in as coming out,
and the Indian did not stand it as well as Kama. He, too,
never complained. Nor did he try again to desert. He
toiled on and did his best, while he renewed his resolve to
steer clear of Daylight in the future. The days slipped
into days, nights and twilights alternating, cold snaps gave
way to snow-falls, and cold snaps came on again, and all
the while, through the long hours, the miles piled up behind
them.

But on the Fifty Mile accident befell them. Crossing an
ice-bridge, the dogs broke through and were swept under
the down-stream ice. The traces that connected the team
with the wheel-dog parted, and the team was never seen
again. Only the one wheel-dog remained, and Daylight
harnessed the Indian and himself to the sled. But a man
cannot take the place of a dog at such work, and the two

BURNING DAYLIGHT 55

men were attempting to do the work of five dogs. At the
end of the first hour, Dayhght lightened up. Dog-food,
extra gear, and the spare axe were thrown away. Under
the extraordinary exertion the dog snapped a tendon the
following day, and was hopelessly disabled. Daylight
shot it, and abandoned the sled. On his back he took one
hundred and sixty pounds of mail and grub, and on the
Indian's put one hundred and twenty-five pounds. The
stripping of gear was remorseless. The Indian was appalled
when he saw every pound of worthless mail matter retained,
while beans, cups, pails, plates, and extra clothing were
thrown by the board. One robe each was kept, one axe, one
tin pail, and a scant supply of bacon and flour. Bacon
could be eaten raw on a pinch, and flour, stirred in hot
water, could keep men going. Even the rifle and the score
of rounds of ammunition were left behind.

And in this fashion they covered the two hundred miles
to Selkirk. Daylight travelled late and early, the hours
formerly used by camp-making and dog-tending being now
devoted to the trail. At night they crouched over a small
fire, wrapped in their robes, drinking flour broth and thaw-
ing bacon on the ends of sticks; and in the morning dark-
ness, without a word, they arose, slipped on their packs,
adjusted head-straps, and hit the trail. The last miles into
Selkirk, Daylight drove the Indian before him, a hollow-
cheeked, gaunt-eyed wraith of a man who else would have
lain down and slept or abandoned his burden of mail.

At Selkirk, the old team of dogs, fresh and in condition,
were harnessed, and the same day saw Daylight plodding
on, alternating places at the gee-pole, as a matter of course,
with the Le Barge Indian who had volunteered on the way
out. Daylight was two days behind his schedule, and fall-
ing snow and unpacked trail kept him two days behind all
the way to Forty Mile. And here the weather favored.
It was time for a big cold snap, and he gambled on it, cutting

56 BURNING DAYLIGHT

down the weight of grub for dogs and men. The men of
Forty Mile shook their heads ominously, and demanded to
know what he would do if the snow still fell.

'That cold snap's sure got to come," he laughed, and
mushed out on the trail.

A number of sleds had passed back and forth already that
winter between Forty Mile and Circle City, and the trail
was well packed. And the cold snap came and remained, and
Circle City was only two hundred miles away. The Le
Barge Indian was a young man, unlearned yet in his own
limitations, and filled with pride. He took Daylight's
pace with joy, and even dreamed, at first, that he would
play the white man out. The first hundred miles he looked
for signs of weakening, and marvelled that he saw them not.
Throughout the second hundred miles he observed signs in
himself, and gritted his teeth and kept up. And ever Day-
light flew on and on, running at the gee-pole or resting
his spell on top the flying sled. The last day, clearer and
colder than ever, gave perfect going, and they covered
seventy miles. It was ten at night when they pulled up the
earth-bank and flew along the main street of Circle City;
and the young Indian, though it was his spell to ride, leaped
off and ran behind the sled. It was honorable braggadocio,
and despite the fact that he had found his limitations and
was pressing desperately against them, he ran gamely on.

CHAPTER VI

A CROWD filled the Tivoli — the old crowd that had seen
Daylight depart two months before; for this was the night
of the sixtieth day, and opinion was divided as ever as to
whether or not he would compass the achievement. At
ten o'clock bets were still being made, though the odds rose,
bet by bet, against his success, Down in her heart the
Virgin believed he had failed, yet she made a bet of twenty
ounces with Charley Bates, against forty ounces, that Day-
light would arrive before midnight.

She it was who heard the first yelps of the dogs.

"Listen ! " she cried. "It's Daylight ! "

There was a general stampede for the door; but when
the double storm-doors were thrown wide open, the crowd
fell back. They heard the eager whining of dogs, the snap
of a dog-whip, and the voice of Daylight crying encourage-
ment as the weary animals capped all they had done by
dragging the sled in over the wooden floor. They came in
with a rush, and with them rushed in the frost, a visible
vapor of smoking white, through which their heads and
backs showed, as they strained in the harness, till they had
all the seeming of swimming in a river. Behind them, at
the gee-pole, came Daylight, hidden to the knees by the
swirling frost through which he appeared to wade.

He was the same old Daylight, withal lean and tired-
looking, and his black eyes were sparkling and flashing
brighter than ever. His parka of cotton drill hooded him
like a monk, and fell in straight lines to his knees. Grimed
and scorched by camp-smoke and fire, the garment in itself
told the story of his trip. A two-months' beard covered

57

58 BURNING DAYLIGHT

his face; and the beard, in turn, was matted with the ice
of his breathing through the long seventy-mile run.

His entry was spectacular, melodramatic; and he knew
it. It was his life, and he was living it at the top of his bent.
Among his fellows he was a great man, an Arctic hero. He
was proud of the fact, and it was a high moment for him,
fresh from two thousand miles of trail, to come surging into
that bar-room, dogs, sled, mail, Indian, paraphernalia, and
all. He had performed one more exploit that would make
the Yukon ring with his name — he. Burning Daylight, the
king of travellers and dog-mushers.

He experienced a thrill of surprise as the roar of welcome
went up and as every familiar detail of the Tivoli greeted
his vision — the long bar and the array of bottles, the gam-
bling games, the big stove, the weigher at the gold-scales,
the musicians, the men and women, the Virgin, Ceha, and
NelHe, Dan MacDonald, Bettles, Billy RawHns, Olaf Hen-
derson, Doc Watson, — all of them. It was just as he had
left it, and in all seeming it might well be the very day he
had left. The sixty days of incessant travel through the
white wilderness suddenly telescoped, and had no existence
in time. They were a moment, an incident. He had plunged
out and into them through the wall of silence, and back
through the wall of silence he had plunged, apparently the
next instant, and into the roar and turmoil of the Tivoli.

A glance do\%Ti at the sled with its canvas mail-bags was
necessary to reassure him of the reality of those sixty days
and the two thousand miles over the ice. As in a dream,
he shook the hands that were thrust out to him. He felt
a vast exaltation. Life was magnificent. He loved it all.
A great sense of humanness and comradeship swept over
him. These were all his, his own kind. It was immense,
tremendous. He felt melting in the heart of him, and he
would have liked to shake hands with them all at once, to
gather them to his breast in one mighty embrace.

BURNING DAYLIGHT S^

He drew a deep breath and cried: "The winner pays,
and I'm the winner, ain't I? Surge up, you-all Malemutes
and Siwashes, and name your poison ! There's your Dyea
mail, straight from Salt Water, and no hornswogglin about
it! Cast the lashings adrift, you-all, and wade into it! "

A dozen pairs of hands were at the sled-lashings, when
the young Le Barge Indian, bending at the same task,
suddenly and limply straightened up. In his eyes was a
great surprise. He stared about him wildly, for the thing
he was undergoing was new to him. He was profoundly
struck by an unguessed limitation. He shook as with a
palsy, and he gave at the knees, slowly sinking down to fall
suddenly across the sled and to know the smashing blow of
darkness across his consciousness.

"Exhaustion," said Daylight. "Take him off and put
him to bed, some of you-all. He's sure a good Indian."

"Daylight's right," was Doc Watson's verdict, a moment
later. "The man's plumb tuckered out."

The mail was taken charge of, the dogs driven away to
quarters and fed, and Bettles struck up the paean of the
sassafras root as they lined up against the long bar to drink
and talk and collect their debts.

A few minutes later, Daylight was whirling around the
dance-floor, waltzing with the Virgin. He had replaced his
parka with his fur cap and blanket-cloth coat, kicked off
his frozen moccasins, and was dancing in his stocking feet.
After wetting himself to the knees late that afternoon, he
had run on without changing his foot-gear, and to the knees
his long German socks were matted with ice. In the
warmth of the room it began to thaw and to break apart in
clinging chunks. These chunks rattled together as his legs
flew around, and every little while they fell clattering to the
floor and were slipped upon by the other dancers. But
everybody forgave Daylight. He, who was one of the few
that made the Law in that far land, who set the ethical

60 BURNING DAYLIGHT

pace, and by conduct gave the standard of right and wrong,
was nevertheless above the Law. He was one of those
rare and favored mortals who can do no wrong. What he
did had to be right, whether others were permitted or not
to do the same things. Of course, such mortals are so
favored by virtue of the fact that they almost always un-
swervingly do the right and do it in finer and higher ways
than other men. So Daylight, an elder hero in that young
land and at the same time younger than most of them, moved
as a creature apart, as a man above men, as a man who was
greatly man and all man. And small wonder it was that
the Virgin yielded herself to his arms, as they danced dance
after dance, and was sick at heart at the knowledge that he
found nothing in her more than a good friend and an excel-
lent dancer. Small consolation it was to know that he had
never loved any woman. She was sick with love of him,
and he danced with her as he would dance with any woman,
as he would dance with a man who was a good dancer and
upon whose arm was tied a handkerchief to conventionalize
him into a woman.

One such man Daylight danced with that night. Among
frontiersmen it has always been a test of endurance for one
man to whirl another down; and when Ben Davis, the
faro-dealer, a gaudy bandanna on his arm, got Daylight in a
Virginia reel, the fun began. The reel broke up and all fell
back to watch. Around and around the two men whirled,
always in the one direction. Word was passed on into the
big bar-room, and bar and gambling tables were deserted.
Everybody wanted to see, and they packed and jammed
the dance-room. The musicians played on and on, and on
and on the two men whirled. Davis was skilled at the
trick, and on the Yukon he had put many a strong man on
his back. But after a few minutes it was clear that he, and
not Daylight, was going.

For a while longer they spun around, and then Daylight

BURNING DAYLIGHT 6l

suddenly stood still, released his partner, and stepped back,
reeling himself, and fluttering his hands aimlessly, as if to
support himself against the air. But Davis, a giddy smile
of consternation on his face, gave sideways, turned in an
attempt to recover balance, and pitched headlong to the
floor. Still reeling and staggering and clutching at the air
with his hands, Daylight caught the nearest girl and started
on in a waltz. Again he had done the big thing. Weary
from two thousand miles over the ice and a run that day
of seventy miles, he had whirled a fresh man down, and that
man Ben Davis.

Daylight loved the high places, and though few high
places there were in his narrow experience, he had made a
point of sitting in the highest he had ever glimpsed. The
great world had never heard his name, but it was known
far and wide in the vast silent North, by whites and Indians
and Eskimos, from Bering Sea to the Passes, from the head-
reaches of remotest rivers to the tundra shore of Point
Barrow. Desire for mastery was strong in him, and it was
all one whether wrestling with the elements themselves,
with men, or with luck in a gambling game. It was all
a game, life and its affairs. And he was a gambler to the
core. Risk and chance were meat and drink. True, it was
not altogether blind, for he applied wit and skill and
strength; but behind it all was the everlasting Luck, the
thing that at times turned on its votaries and crushed the
wise while it blessed the fools — Luck, the thing all men
sought and dreamed to conquer. And so he. Deep in his
life-processes Life itself sang the siren song of its own
majesty, ever a-whisper and urgent, counselling him that
he could achieve more than other men, win out where they
failed, ride to success where they perished. It was the
urge of Life healthy and strong, unaware of frailty and
decay, drunken with sublime complacence, ego-mad, en-
chanted by its own mighty optimism.

62 BURNING DAYLIGHT

And ever in vaguest whisperings and clearest trumpet-
calls came the message that sometime, somewhere, somehow,
he would run Luck down, make himself the master of Luck,
and tie it and brand it as his own. When he played poker,
the whisper was of four aces and royal flushes. When he
prospected, it was of gold in the grass-roots, gold on bed-
rock, and gold all the way down. At the sharpest hazards
of trail and river and famine, the message was that other
men might die, but that he would pull through triumphant.
It was the old, old lie of Life fooling itself, believing itself
immortal and indestructible, bound to achieve over other
lives and win to its heart's desire.

And so, reversing at times. Daylight waltzed off his
dizziness and led the way to the bar. But a united protest
went up. His theory that the winner paid was no longer
to be tolerated. It was contrary to custom and common
sense, and while it emphasized good-fellowship, neverthe-
less, in the name of good-fellowship it must cease. The
drinks were rightfully on Ben Davis, and Ben Davis must
buy them. Furthermore, all drinks and general treats that
Daylight was guilty of ought to be paid by the house, for
Daylight brought much custom to it whenever he made a
night. Bettles was the spokesman, and his argument, tersely
and offensively vernacular, was unanimously applauded.

Daylight grinned, stepped aside to the roulette-table, and
bought a stack of yellow chips. At the end of ten minutes
he weighed in at the scales, and two thousand dollars in
gold-dust was poured into his own and an extra sack. Luck,
a mere flutter of luck, but it was his. Elation was added
to elation. He was living, and the night was his. He
turned upon his well-wishing critics.

"Now the winner sure does pay," he said.

And they surrendered. There was no withstanding
Dayhght when he vaulted on the back of Hfe, and rode it
bitted and spurred.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 63

At one in the morning he saw Elijah Davis herding Henry
Finn and Joe Hines, the lumber-jack, toward the door.
Daylight interfered.

"Where are you-all going?" he demanded, attempting to
draw them to the bar.

"Bed," Elijah Davis answered.

He was a lean, tobacco-chewing New Englander, the one
daring spirit in his family that had heard and answered the
call of the West shouting through the Mount Desert back
pastures and wood-lots.

"Got to," Joe Hines added apologetically. "We're mush-
ing out in the mornin'."

Daylight still detained them.

* Where to? What's the excitement?"

"No excitement," Elijah explained. "We're just a-goin'
to play your hunch, an' tackle the Upper Country. Don't
you want to come along?"

"I sure do," Daylight affirmed.

But the question had been put in fun, and Elijah ignored
the acceptance.

"We're tackUn' the Stewart," he went on. "Al Mayo
told me he seen some likely lookin' bars first time he come
down the Stewart, and we're goin' to sample 'em while the
river's froze. You Hsten, Dayhght, an' mark my words,
the time's comin' when winter diggin's '11 be all the go.
There'll be men in them days that'll laugh at our summer
stratchin' an' ground-wallerin'."

At that time, winter mining was undreamed of on the
Yukon. From the moss and grass the land was frozen
to bed-rock, and frozen gravel, hard as granite, defied pick
and shovel. In the summer the men stripped the earth
down as fast as the sun thawed it. Then was the time they
did their mining. During the vrinter they freighted their
provisions, went moose-hunting, got all ready for the sum-
mer's work, and then loafed the bleak, dark months through

64 BURNING DAYLIGHT

in the big central camps such as Circle City and Forty
Mile.

"Winter diggin's sure comin'," Daylight agreed. "Wait
till that big strike is made up river. Then you-all '11 see
a new kind of mining. What's to prevent wood-burning,
and sinking shafts and drifting along bed-rock? Won't need
to timber. That frozen muck and gravel '11 stand till hell
is froze and its mill-tails is turned to ice-cream. Why,
they'll be working pay-streaks a hundred feet deep in them
days that's comin'. I'm sure going along with you-all,
Elijah."

Elijah laughed, gathered his two partners up, and was
making a second attempt to reach the door.

"Hold on/' Daylight called. "I sure mean it."

The three men turned back suddenly upon him, in their
faces surprise, delight, and incredulity.

"G'wan, you're foolin'," said Finn, the other lumber-
jack, a quiet, steady, Wisconsin man.

"There's my dawgs and sled," DayHght answered.

"That'll make two teams and halve the loads; though
we-all '11 have to travel easy for a spell, for them dawgs is
sure tired."

The three men were overjoyed, but still a trifle incredulous.

"Now look here," Joe Hines blurted out, "none of your
fooHn', Daylight. We mean business. Will you come?"

Daylight extended his hand and shook.

"Then you'd best be gettin' to bed," EHjah advised.
"We're mushin' out at six, and four hours' sleep is none so
long."

"Mebbe we ought to lay over a day and let him rest up,"
Finn suggested.

Daylight's pride was touched.

"No you don't," he cried. "We all start at six. What
time do you-all want to be called? Five? All right, I'll
rouse you-all out."

BURNING DAYLIGHT 65

"You oughter have some sleep," Elijah counselled
gravely. "You can't go on forever,"

Daylight was tired, profoundly tired. Even his iron
body acknowledged weariness. Every muscle was clamor-
ing for bed and rest, was appalled at continuance of exer-
tion and at thought of the trail again. All this physical
protest welled up into his brain in a wave of revolt. But
deeper down, scornful and defiant, was Life itself, the
essential fire of it, whispering that all Daylight's fellows
were looking on, that now was the time to pile deed upon
deed, to flaunt his strength in the face of strength. It was
merely Life, whispering its ancient lies. And in league
with it was whiskey, with all its consummate effrontery and
vain-glory.

"Mebbe you-all think I ain't weaned yet?" Daylight
demanded. "Why, I ain't had a drink, or a dance, or seen
a soul in two months. You-all get to bed. I'll call you-all
at five."

And for the rest of the night he danced on in his stocking
feet, and at five in the morning, rapping thunderously on the
door of his new partners' cabin, he could be heard singing
the song that had given him his name: —

"Burning daylight, you-all Stewart River hunchers!
Burning daylight ! Burning daylight ! Burning daylight ! "

CHAPTER VII

This time the trail was easier. It was better packed, and
they were not carrying mail against time. The day's run
was shorter, and likewise the hours on trail. On his mail
run Daylight had played out three Indians ; but his present
partners knew that they must not be played out when they
arrived at the Stewart bars, so they set the slower pace.
And under this milder toil, where his companions never-
theless grew weary, Daylight recuperated and rested up.
At Forty Mile they laid over two days for the sake of the
dogs, and at Sixty Mile Daylight's team was left with the
trader. Unlike Dayhght, after the terrible run from Sel-
kirk to Circle City, they had been unable to recuperate on
the back trail. So the four men pulled on from Sixty Mile
with a fresh team of dogs on Daylight's sled.

The following night they camped in the cluster of islands
at the mouth of the Stewart. Daylight talked town sites,
and, though the others laughed at him, he staked the whole
maze of high, wooded islands.

"Just supposing the big strike does come on the Stewart,"
he argued. "Mebbe you-all '11 be in on it, and then again
mebbe you-all won't. But I sure will. You-all 'd better
reconsider and go in with me on it."

But they were stubborn.

"You're as bad as Harper and Joe Ladue," said Joe
Hines. "They're always at that game. You know that
big flat jest below the Klondike and under Moosehide
Mountain? Well, the recorder at Forty Mile was tellin'
me they staked that not a month ago — The Harper &
Ladue Town Site. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

66

BURNING DAYLIGHT 67

Elijah and Finn joined him in his laughter ; but Daylight
was gravely in earnest.

"There she is!" he cried. "The hunch is working!
It's in the air, I tell you-all! What'd they-all stake the big
flat for if they-all didn't get the hunch? Wish I'd staked
it."

The regret in his voice was provocative of a second burst
of laughter.

"Laugh, you-all! Laugh! That's what's the trouble
with you-all. You-all think gold-hunting is the only way
to make a stake. But let me tell you-all that when the big
strike sure does come, you-all '11 do a little surface-scratchin'
and muck-raking, but danged Uttle you-all '11 have to show
for it. You-all laugh at quicksilver in the riffles and think
flour gold was manufactured by God Almighty for the ex-
press purpose of fooling suckers and chechaquos. Nothing
but coarse gold for you-all, that's your way, not getting
half of it out of the ground and losing into the tailings half
of what you-all do get.

"But the men that land big will be them that stake
the town sites, organize the tradin' companies, start the
banks—"

Here the explosion of mirth drowned him out. Banks
in Alaska! The idea of it was excruciating.

"Yep, and start the stock exchanges — "

Again they were convulsed. Joe Hines rolled over on
his sleeping-robe, holding his sides.

"And after them will come the big mining sharks that
buy whole creeks where you-all have been scratching like a
lot of picayune hens, and they-all will go to hvdraulicking
in summer and steam-thawing in winter — "

Steam-thawing! That was the limit. Daylight was
certainly exceeding himself in his consummate fun-making.
Steam-thawing — when even wood-burning was an untried
experiment, a dream in the air!

68 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"Laugh, dang you, laugh! Why your eyes ain't open
yet. You-all are a bunch of little mewing kittens. I tell
you-all if that strike comes on Klondike, Harper and Ladue
will be millionaires. And if it comes on Stewart, you-all
watch the Elam Harnish town site boom. In them days,
when you-all come around makin' poor mouths . . ." He
heaved a sigh of resignation. "Well, I suppose I'll have to
give you-all a grub-stake or soup, or something or other."

Daylight had vision. His scope had been rigidly limited,
yet whatever he saw, he saw big. His mind was orderly,
his imagination practical, and he never dreamed idly.
When he superimposed a feverish metropolis on a waste
of timbered, snow-covered flat, he predicated first the gold-
strike that made the city possible, and next he had an eye
for steamboat landings, sawmill and warehouse locations,
and all the needs of a far-northern mining city. But this,
in turn, was the mere setting for something bigger, namely,
the play of temperament. Opportunities swarmed in the
streets and buildings and human and economic relations of
the city of his dream. It was a larger table for gambling.
The limit was the sky, with the Southland on one side and
the aurora borealis on the other. The play would be big,
bigger than any Yukoner had ever imagined, and he, Burn-
ing Daylight, would see that he got in on that play.

In the meantime there was naught to show for it but the
hunch. But it was coming. As he would stake his last
ounce on a good poker hand, so he staked his life and effort
on the hunch that the future held in store a big strike on
the Upper River. So he and his three companions, with
dogs, and sleds, and snowshoes, toiled up the frozen breast
of the Stewart, toiled on and on through the white wilder-
ness where the unending stillness was never broken by the
voices of men, the stroke of an axe, or the distant crack of
a rifle. They alone moved through the vast and frozen
quiet, little mites of earth-men, crawling their score of

BURNING DAYLIGHT 69

miles a day, melting the ice that they might have water to
drink, camping in the snow at night, their wolf-dogs curled
in frost-rimed, hairy bunches, their eight snowshoes stuck
on end in the snow beside the sleds.

No signs of other men did they see, though once they
passed a rude poling-boat, cached on a platform by the river
bank. Whoever had cached it had never come back for it;
and they wondered and mushed on. Another time they
chanced upon the site of an Indian village, but the Indians
had disappeared; undoubtedly they were on the higher
reaches of the Stewart in pursuit of the moose-herds. Two
hundred miles up from the Yukon, they came upon what
Ehjah decided were the bars mentioned by Al Mayo. A
permanent camp was made, their outfit of food cached on
a high platform to keep it from the dogs, and they started
work on the bars, cutting their way down to gravel through
the rim of ice.

It was a hard and simple life. Breakfast over, and
they were at work by the first gray light; and when night
descended, they did their cooking and camp-chores, smoked
and yarned for a while, then rolled up in their sleeping-
robes, and slept while the aurora borealis flamed overhead
and the stars leaped and danced in the great cold. Their
fare was monotonous: sour-dough bread, bacon, beans, and
an occasional dish of rice cooked along with a handful of
prunes. Fresh meat they failed to obtain. There was an
unwonted absence of animal life. At rare intervals they
chanced upon the trail of a snowshoe rabbit or an ermine;
but in the main it seemed that all life had fled the land.
It was a condition not unknown to them, for in all their
experience, at one time or another, they had travelled one
year through a region teeming with game, where, a year or
two or three years later, no game at all would be found.

Gold they found on the bars, but not in paying quantities.
Ehjah. while on a hunt for moose fifty miles away, had

70 BURNING DAYLIGHT

panned the surface gravel of a large creek and found good
colors. They harnessed their dogs, and with light outfits
sledded to the place. Here, and possibly for the first time
in the history of the Yukon, wood-burning, in sinking a
shaft, was tried. It was Daylight's initiative. After clear-
ing away the moss and grass, a fire of dry spruce was built.
Six hours of burning thawed eight inches of muck. Their
picks drove full depth into it, and, when they had shovelled
out, another fire was started. They worked early and late,
excited over the success of the experiment. Six feet of
frozen muck brought them to gravel, likewise frozen. Here
progress was slower. But they learned to handle their fires
better, and were soon able to thaw five and six inches
at a burning. Flour gold was in this gravel, and after two
feet it gave away again to muck. At seventeen feet they
struck a thin streak of gravel, and in it coarse gold, test-
pans running as high as six and eight dollars. Unfortunately,
this streak of gravel was not more than an inch thick. Be-
neath it was more muck, tangled with the trunks of ancient
trees and containing fossil bones of forgotten monsters.
But gold they had found — coarse gold; and what more
likely than that the big deposit would be found on bed-rock?
Down to bed-rock they would go, if it were forty feet away.
They divided into two shifts, working day and night, on
two shafts, and the smoke of their burning rose continually.

It was at this time that they ran short of beans and that
Elijah was despatched to the main camp to bring up more
grub. Elijah was one of the hard-bitten old-time travellers
himself. The round trip was a hundred miles, but he prom-
ised to be back on the third day, one day going light, two
days returning heavy. Instead, he arrived on the night of
the second day. They had just gone to bed when they
heard him coming.

"What in hell's the matter now?" Henry Finn demanded,
as the empty sled came into the circle of firelight and as he

BURNING DAYLIGHT 7 1

noted that Elijah's long, serious face was longer and even
more serious.

Joe Hines threw wood on the fire, and the three men,
wrapped in their robes, huddled up close to the warmth.
Elijah's whiskered face was matted with ice, as were his
eyebrows, so that, what of his fur garb, he looked like a
New England caricature of Father Christmas.

"You recollect that big spruce that held up the corner
of the cache next to the river?" Elijah began.

The disaster was quickly told. The big tree, with all the
seeming of hardihood, promising to stand for centuries to
come, had suffered from a hidden decay. In some way its
rooted grip on the earth had weakened. The added burden
of the cache and the winter snow had been too much for it;
the balance it had so long maintained with the forces of
its environment had been overthrown; it had toppled and
crashed to the ground, wrecking the cache and, in turn,
overthrowing the balance with environment that the four
men and eleven dogs had been maintaining. Their supply
of grub was gone. The wolverines had got into the wrecked
cache, and what they had not eaten they had destroyed.

"They plumb e't all the bacon and prunes and sugar and
dog-food," Elijah reported, "and gosh darn my buttons,
if they didn't gnaw open the sacks and scatter the flour
and beans and rice from Dan to Beersheba. I found
empty sacks where they'd dragged them a quarter of a mile
away."

Nobody spoke for a long minute. It was nothing less
than a catastrophe, in the dead of an Arctic winter and in
a game-abandoned land, to lose their grub. They were not
panic-stricken, but they were busy looking the situation
squarely in the face and considering. Joe Hines was the
first to speak.

"We can pan the snow for the beans and rice . . .
though there wa'n't more'n eight or ten pounds of rice left."

72 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"And somebody will have to take a team and pull for
Sixty Mile," Daylight said next.

"I'll go," said Finn,

They considered a while longer.

"But how are we going to feed the other team and three
men till he gets back?" Hines demanded.

"Only one thing to it," was Elijah's contribution. "You'll
have to take the other team, Joe, and pull up the Stewart
till you find them Indians. Then you come back with
a load of meat. You'll get here long before Henry can
make it from Sixty Mile, and while you're gone there '11
only be Daylight and me to feed, and we'll feed good and
small."

"And in the morning we-all '11 pull for the cache and pan
snow to find what grub we've got." Daylight lay back,
as he spoke, and rolled in his robe to sleep, then added:
"Better turn in for an early start. Two of you can take
the dogs down, Elijah and me'll skin out on both sides
and see if we-all can scare up a moose on the way down.'^

CHAPTER VIII

No time was lost. Hines and Finn, with the dogs, already
on short rations, were two days in pulling down. At noon
of the third day Elijah arrived, reporting no moose sign.
That night Daylight came in with a similar report. As
fast as they arrived, the men had started careful panning
of the snow all around the cache. It was a large task, for
they found stray beans fully a hundred yards from the
cache. One more day all the men toiled. The result was
pitiful, and the four showed their caliber in the division of
the few pounds of food that had been recovered.

Little as it was, the lion's share was left with Daylight
and Elijah. The men who pulled on with the dogs, one up
the Stewart and one down, would come more quickly to
grub. The two who remained would have to last out till
the others returned. Furthermore, while the dogs, on
several ounces each of beans a day, would travel slowly,
nevertheless, the men who travelled with them, on a pinch,
would have the dogs themselves to eat. But the men who
remained, when the pinch came, would have no dogs. It
was for this reason that Daylight and Elijah took the more
desperate chance. They could not do less, nor did they
care to do less. The days passed, and the winter began
merging imperceptibly into the Northland spring that comes
like a thunderbolt of suddenness. It was the spring of
1896 that was preparing. Each day the sun rose farther
east of south, remained longer in the sky, and set farther
to the west. March ended and April began, and Daylight
and Elijah, lean and hungry, wondered what had become
of their two comrades. Granting every delay, and throwing

73

74 BURNING DAYLIGHT

in generous margins for good measure, the time was long
since past when they should have returned. Without
doubt they had met with disaster. The party had con-
sidered the possibility of disaster for one man, and that had
been the principal reason for despatching the two in differ-
ent directions. But that disaster should have come to both
of them was the final blow.

In the meantime, hoping against hope. Daylight and
Elijah eked out a meagre existence. The thaw had not
yet begun, so they were able to gather the snow about the
ruined cache and melt it in pots and pails and gold pans.
Allowed to stand for a while, when poured off, a thin deposit
of slime was found on the bottoms of the vessels. This was
the flour, the infinitesimal trace of it scattered through
thousands of cubic yards of snow. Also, in this slime oc-
curred at intervals a water-soaked tea-leaf or coffee-ground,
and there were in it fragments of earth and litter. But the
farther they worked away from the site of the cache the
thinner became the trace of flour, the smaller the deposit
of slime.

Elijah was the older man, and he weakened first, so that
he came to He up most of the time in his furs. An occasional
tree-squirrel kept them alive. This hunting fell upon Day-
light, and it was hard work. With but thirty rounds of
ammunition he dared not risk a miss; and, since his rifle
was a 45-90, he was compelled to shoot the small creatures
through the head. There were very few of them, and days
went by without seeing one. When he did see one, he took
infinite precautions. He would stalk it for hours. A score
of times, with arms that shook from weakness, he would
draw a sight on the animal and refrain from pulling the
trigger. His inhibition was a thing of iron. He was the
master. Not till absolute certitude was his did he shoot.
No matter how sharp the pangs of hunger and desire for
that palpitating morsel of chattering hfe, he refused to

BURNING DAYLIGHT 75

take the slightest risk of a miss. He, born gambler that
he was, was gambling in the bigger way. His life was the
stake, his cards were the cartridges, and he played as only a
big gambler could play, with infinite care, with infinite pre-
caution, with infinite consideration. As a result, he never
missed. Each shot meant a squirrel, and though days
elapsed between shots, it never changed his method of play.

Of the squirrels nothing was lost. Even the skins were
boiled to make broth, the bones pounded into fragments
that could be chewed and swallowed. Daylight prospected
through the snow, and found occasional patches of moss-
berries. At the best, mossberries were composed practi-
cally of seeds and water, with a tough rind of skin about^
them; but the berries he found were of the preceding year,
dry and shrivelled, and the nourishment they contained
verged on the minus quantity. Scarcely better was the
bark of young saplings, stewed for an hour and swallowed,
after prodigious chewing.

April drew toward its close, and spring smote the land.
The days stretched out their length. Under the heat of the
sun the snow began to melt, while from down under the
snow arose the trickling of tiny streams. For twenty-four
hours the Chinook wind blew, and in that twenty-four hours
the snow was diminished fully a foot in depth. In the late
afternoons the melting snow froze again, so that its surface
became ice capable of supporting a man's weight. Tiny
white snow-birds appeared from the south, lingered a day,
and resumed their journey into the north. Once, high
in the air, looking for open water and ahead of the season,
a wedged squadron of wild geese honked northward. And
down by the river bank a clump of dwarf willows burst
into bud. These young buds, stewed, seemed to possess
an encouraging nutrition. Elijah took heart of hope,
though he was cast down again when Daylight failed to
find another clump of willows.

76 BURNING DAYLIGHT

The sap was rising in the trees, and daily the trickle of
unseen streamlets became louder as the frozen land came
back to life. But the river held in its bonds of frost.
Winter had been long months in riveting them, and not in
a day were they to be broken, not even by the thunderbolt
of spring. May came, and stray last-year's mosquitoes,
full-grown but harmless, crawled out of rock crevices and
rotten logs. Crickets began to chirp, and more geese and
ducks flew overhead. And still the river held. By May
tenth, the ice of the Stewart, with a great rending and snap-
ping, tore loose from the banks and rose three feet. But it
did not go down-stream. The lower Yukon, up to where
the Stewart flowed into it, must first break and move on.
Until then the ice of the Stewart could only rise higher and
higher on the increasing flood beneath. When the Yukon
would break was problematical. Two thousand miles away
it flowed into Bering Sea, and it was the ice conditions of
Bering Sea that would determine when the Yukon could
rid itself of the milHons of tons of ice that cluttered its
breast.

On the twelfth of May, carrying their sleeping-robes, a
pail, an axe, and the precious rifle, the two men started
down the river on the ice. Their plan was to gain to the
cached poling-boat they had seen, so that at the first open
water they could launch it and drift with the stream to
Sixty Mile. In their weak condition, without food, the
going was slow and difficult. Elijah developed a habit of
falling down and being unable to rise. Dayhght gave of
bis own strength to lift him to his feet, whereupon the older
man would stagger automatically on until he stumbled and
fell again.

On the day they should have reached the boat, Elijah
collapsed utterly. When Daylight raised him, he fell again.
Daylight essayed to walk with him, supporting him, but
such was Daylight's own weakness that they fell together.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 77

Dragging Elijah to the bank, a rude camp was made, and
Daylight started out in search of squirrels. It was at this
time that he likewise developed the falling habit. In the
evening he found his first squirrel, but darkness came on
without his getting a certain shot. With primitive patience
he waited till next day, and then, within the hour, the
squirrel was his.

The major portion he fed to Elijah, reserving for himself
the tougher parts and the bones. But such is the chemistry
of life, that this small creature, this trifle of meat that
moved, by being eaten, transmuted to the meat of the men
the same power to move. No longer did the squirrel run up
spruce trees, leap from branch to branch, or cling chatter-
ing to giddy perches. Instead, the same energy that had
done these things flowed into the wasted muscles and
reeling wills of the men, making them move — nay, moving
them — till they tottered the several intervening miles to
the cached boat, underneath which they fell together and
lay motionless a long time.

Light as the task would have been for a strong man to
lower the small boat to the ground, it took Daylight hours.
And many hours more, day by day, he dragged himself
around it, lying on his side to calk the gaping seams with
moss. Yet, when this was done, the river still held. Its
ice had risen many feet, but would not start down-stream.
And one more task waited, the launching of the boat when
the river ran water to receive it. Vainly Daylight staggered
and stumbled and fell and crept through the snow that was
wet with thaw, or across it when the night's frost still
crusted it beyond the weight of a man, searching for one
more squirrel, striving to achieve one more transmutation of
furry leap and scolding chatter into the lifts and tugs of a
man's body that would hoist the boat over the rim of shore-
ice and slide it down into the stream.

Not till the twentieth of May did the river break. The

78 BURNING DAYLIGHT

down-stream movement began at five in the morning, and
already were the days so long that Daylight sat up and
watched the ice-run. EHjah was too far gone to be inter-
ested in the spectacle. Though vaguely conscious, he lay
without movement while the ice tore by, great cakes of it
caroming against the bank, uprooting trees, and gouging out
earth by hundreds of tons. All about them the land shook
and reeled from the shock of these tremendous colhsions.
At the end of an hour the run stopped. Somewhere below
it was blocked by a jam. Then the river began to rise,
lifting the ice on its breast till it was higher than the bank.
From behind ever more water bore down, and ever more
millions of tons of ice added their weight to the congestion.
The pressures and stresses became terrific. Huge cakes of
ice were squeezed out till they popped into the air like
melon seeds squeezed from between the thumb and fore-
finger of a child, while all along the banks a wall of ice was
forced up. When the jam broke, the noise of grinding
and smashing redoubled. For another hour the run con-
tinued. The river fell rapidly. But the wall of ice on top
the bank, and extending down into the falling water, re-
mained.

The tail of the ice-run passed, and for the first time in
six months Daylight saw open water. He knew that the
ice had not yet passed out from the upper reaches of the
Stewart, that it lay in packs and jams in those upper reaches,
and that it might break loose and come down in a second
run any time; but the need was too desperate for him to
linger. EHjah was so far gone that he might pass at any
moment. As for himself, he was not sure that enough
strength remained in his wasted muscles to launch the
boat. It was all a gamble. If he waited for the second
ice-run, Elijah would surely die, and most probably himself.
If he succeeded in launching the boat, if he kept ahead of
the second ice-run, if he did not get caught by some of the

BURNING DAYLIGHT 79

runs from the upper Yukon; if luck favored in all these
essential particulars, as well as in a score of minor ones,
they would reach Sixty Mile and be saved, if — and again
the if — he had strength enough to land the boat at Sixty
Mile and not go by.

He set to work. The wall of ice was five feet above the
ground on which the boat rested. First prospecting for the
best launching-place, he found where a huge cake of ice
shelved upward from the river that ran fifteen feet below
to the top of the wall. This was a score of feet away, and at
the end of an hour he had managed to get the boat that far.
He was sick with nausea from his exertions, and at times it
seemed that blindness smote him, for he could not see, his
eyes vexed with spots and points of light that were as ex-
cruciating as diamond-dust, his heart pounding up in his
throat and suffocating him. Elijah betrayed no interest,
did not move nor open his eyes; and Daylight fought out
his battle alone. At last, falling on his knees from the
shock of exertion, he got the boat poised on a secure balance
on top the wall. Crawling on hands and knees, he placed
in the boat his rabbit-skin robe, the rifle, and the pail. He
did not bother with the axe. It meant an additional crawl
of twenty feet and back, and if the need for it should arise
he well knew he would be past all need.

Elijah proved a bigger task than he had anticipated. A
few inches at a time, resting in between, he dragged him
over the ground and up a broken rubble of ice to the side of
the boat. But into the boat he could not get him. Elijah's
limp body was far more difficult to lift and handle than an
equal weight of like dimensions but rigid. Daylight failed
to hoist him, for the body collapsed at the middle like a
part-empty sack of corn. Getting into the boat, Daylight
tried vainly to drag his comrade in after him. The best he
could do was to get Elijah's head and shoulders on top the
gunwale. When he released his hold, to heave from far-

8o BURNING DAYLIGHT

ther down the body, Elijah promptly gave at the middle
and came down on the ice.

In despair, Daylight changed his tactics. He struck the
other in the face.

"God Almighty, ain't you-all a man?" he cried. "There!
damn you-all ! there ! "

At each curse he struck him on the cheeks, the nose, the
mouth, striving, by the shock of the hurt, to bring back the
sinking soul and far-wandering will of the man. The eyes
fluttered open.

"Now listen!" he shouted hoarsely. "When I get your
head to the gunwale, hang on! Hear me? Hang on!
Bite into it with your teeth, but hang on!"

The eyes fluttered down, but Daylight knew the mes-
sage had been received. Again he got the helpless man's
head and shoulders on the gunwale.

"Hang on, damn you! Bite in!" he shouted, as he
shifted his grip lower down.

One weak hand slipped off the gunwale, the fingers of
the other hand relaxed, but Elijah obeyed, and his teeth
held on. When the lift came, his face ground forward, and
the splintery wood tore and crushed the skin from nose,
lips, and chin ; and, face downward, he slipped on and down
to the bottom of the boat till his limp middle collapsed
across the gunwale and his legs hung down outside. But
they were only his legs, and Daylight shoved them in after
him. Breathing heavily, he turned Elijah over on his
back, and covered him with his robes.

The final task remained — the launching of the boat.
This, of necessity, was the severest of all, for he had been
compelled to load his comrade in aft of the balance. It
meant a supreme effort at lifting. Daylight steeled him-
self and began. Something must have snapped, for, though
he was unaware of it, the next he knew he was lying doubled
on his stomach across the sharp stern of the boat. Evi-

BURNING DAYLIGHT 8 1

dently, and for the first time in his life, he had fainted.
Furthermore, it seemed to him that he was finished, that he
had not one more movement left in him, and that, strangest
of all, he did not care. Visions came to him, clear-cut and
real, and concepts sharp as steel cutting-edges. He, who
all his days had looked on naked Life, had never seen so
much of Life's nakedness before. For the first time he ex-
perienced a doubt of his own glorious personality. For the
moment Life faltered and forgot to lie. After all, he was a
little earth-maggot, just like all the other earth-maggots, like
the squirrel he had eaten, like the other men he had seen
fail and die, like Joe Hines and Henry Finn, who had already
failed and were surely dead, like Elijah lying there uncaring,
with his skinned face, in the bottom of the boat. Daylight's
position was such that from where he lay he could look up
river to the bend, around which, sooner or later, the next
ice-run would come. And as he looked he seemed to see
back through the past to a time when neither white man nor
Indian was in the land, and ever he saw the same Stewart
River, winter upon winter, breasted with ice, and spring
upon spring bursting that ice asunder and running free.
And he saw also into an illimitable future, when the last
generations of men were gone from off the face of Alaska,
when he, too, would be gone, and he saw, ever remaining,
that river, freezing and fresheting, and running on and on.
Life was a liar and a cheat. It fooled all creatures. It
had fooled him. Burning Daylight, one of its chiefest and
most joyous exponents. He was nothing — a mere bunch
of flesh and nerves and sensitiveness that crawled in the
muck for gold, that dreamed and aspired and gambled,
and that passed and was gone. Only the dead things re-
mained, the things that were not flesh and nerves and
sensitiveness, the sand and muck and gravel, the stretch-
ing flats, the mountains, the river itself, freezing and break-
ing, year by year, down all the years. When all was said

82 BURNING DAYLIGHT

and done, it was a scurvy game. The dice were loaded.
Those that died did not win, and all died. Who won?
Not even Life, the stool-pigeon, the arch-capper for the
game — Life, the ever flourishing graveyard, the everlasting
funeral procession.

He drifted back to the immediate present for a moment
and noted that the river still ran wide open, and that a
moose-bird, perched on the bow of the boat, was surveying
him impudently. Then he drifted dreamily back to his
meditations.

There was no escaping the end of the game. He was
doomed surely to be out of it all. ^\nd what of it? He
pondered that question again and again.

Conventional religion had passed Daylight by. He had
lived a sort of religion in his square dealing and right play-
ing with other men, and he had not indulged in vain meta-
physics about future life. Death ended all. He had always
believed that, and been unafraid. And at this moment,
the boat fifteen feet above the water and immovable, him-
self fainting with weakness and without a particle of
strength left in him, he still believed that death ended all,
and he was still unafraid. His views were too simply and
solidly based to be overthrown by the first squirm, or the
last, of death-fearing life.

He had seen men and animals die, and into the field of his
vision, by scores, came such deaths. He saw them over
again, just as he had seen them at the time, and they did not
shake him. What of it? They were dead, and dead long
since. They weren't bothering about it. They weren't
lying on their bellies across a boat and waiting to die.
Death was easy — easier than he had ever imagined; and,
now that it was near, the thought of it made him glad.

A new vision came to him. He saw the feverish city of
his dream — the gold metropolis of the North, perched
above the Yukon on a high earth-bank and far-spreading

BURNING DAYLIGHT 83

across the flat. He saw the river steamers tied to the bank
and lined against it three deep; he saw the sawmills work-
ing and the long dog-teams, with double sleds behind,
freighting supplies to the diggings. And he saw, further,
the gambling-houses, banks, stock-exchanges, and all the
gear and chips and markers, the chances and opportunities,
of a vastly bigger gambling game than any he had ever seen.
It was sure hell, he thought, with the hunch a-working and
that big strike coming, to be out of it all. Life thrilled and
stirred at the thought and once more began uttering his
ancient lies.

Daylight rolled over and off the boat, leaning against it
as he sat on the ice. He wanted to be in on that strike.
And why shouldn't he? Somewhere in all those wasted
muscles of his was enough strength, if he could gather it
all at once, to up-end the boat and launch it. Quite irrele-
vantly the idea suggested itself of buying a share in the
Klondike town site from Harper and Joe Ladue. They
would surely sell a third interest cheap. Then, if the strike
came on the Stewart, he would be well in on it with the
Elam Harnish town site; if on the Klondike, he would
not be quite out of it.

In the meantime, he would gather strength. He stretched
out on the ice full length, face downward, and for half an
hour he lay and rested. Then he arose, shook the flashing
blindness from his eyes, and took hold of the boat. He
knew his condition accurately. If the first effort failed,
the following efforts were doomed to fail. He must pull
all his rallied strength into the one effort, and so thor-
oughly must he put all of it in that there would be none left
for other attempts.

He lifted, and he lifted with the soul of him as well as
with the body, consuming himself, body and spirit, in the
effort. The boat rose. He thought he was going to
faint, but he continued to lift. He felt the boat give, as it

84 BURNING DAYLIGHT

started on its downward slide. With the last shred of his
strength he precipitated himself into it, landing in a sick
heap on Elijah's legs. He was beyond attempting to rise,
and as he lay he heard and felt the boat take the water.
By watching the tree-tops he knew it was whirling. A
smashing shock and flying fragments of ice told him that it
had struck the bank. A dozen times it whirled and struck,
and then it floated easily and free.

Daylight came to, and decided he had been asleep. The
sun denoted that several hours had passed. It was early
afternoon. He dragged himself into the stern and sat up.
The boat was in the middle of the stream. The wooded
banks, with their base-hnes of flashing ice, were slipping by.
Near him floated a huge, uprooted pine. A freak of the
current brought the boat against it. Crawling forward, he
fastened the painter to a root. The tree, deeper in the
water, was travelling faster, and the painter tautened as the
boat took the tow. Then, with a last giddy look around,
wherein he saw the banks tilting and swaying and the
sun swinging in pendulum-sweep across the sky. Daylight
wrapped himself in his rabbit-skin robe, lay down in the
bottom, and fell asleep.

When he awoke, it was dark night. He was lying on his
back, and he could see the stars shining. A subdued
murmur of swollen waters could be heard. A sharp jerk
informed him that the boat, swerving slack into the painter,
had been straightened out by the swifter-moving pine tree.
A piece of stray drift-ice thumped against the boat and
grated along its side. Well, the following jam hadn't
caught him yet, was his thought, as he closed his eyes and
slept again.

It was bright day when next he opened his eyes. The
sun showed it to be midday. A glance around at the far-
away banks, and he knew that he was on the mighty Yukon.
Sixty Mile could not be far away. He was abominably

BURNING DAYLIGHT 85

weak. His movements were slow, fumbling, and inaccu-
rate, accompanied by panting and head-swimming, as he
dragged himself into a sitting-up position in the stern, his
rifle beside him. He looked a long time at Elijah, but could
not see whether he breathed or not, and he was too immeas-
urably far away to make an investigation.

He fell to dreaming and meditating again, dreams and
thoughts being often broken by stretches of blankness,
wherein he neither slept, nor was unconscious, nor was
aware of anything. It seemed to him more like cogs slip-
ping in his brain. And in this intermittent way he reviewed
the situation. He was still alive, and most likely would be
saved, but how came it that he was not lying dead across
the boat on top the ice-rim? Then he recollected the great
final effort he had made. But why had he made it? he
asked himself. It had not been fear of death. He had
not been afraid, that was sure. Then he remembered the
hunch and the big strike he believed was coming, and he
knew that the spur had been his desire to sit in for a hand
at that big game. And again why? What if he made his
million? He would die, just the same as those that never
won more than grub-stakes. Then again why? But the
blank stretches in his thinking process began to come more
frequently, and he surrendered to the delightful lassitude
that was creeping over him.

He roused with a start. Something had whispered in
him that he must awake. Abruptly he saw Sixty Mile,
not a hundred feet away. The current had brought him to
the very door. But the same current was now sweeping
him past and on into the down-river wilderness. No one
was in sight. The place might have been deserted, save
for the smoke he saw rising from the kitchen chimney. He
tried to call, but found he had no voice left. An unearthly
guttural hiss alternately rattled and wheezed in his throat.
He fumbled for the rifle, got it to his shoulder, and pulled

86 BURNING DAYLIGHT

the trigger. The recoil of the discharge tore through his
frame, racking it with a thousand agonies. The rifle had
fallen across his knees, and an attempt to lift it to his shoul-
der failed. He knew he must be quick, and felt that he was
fainting, so he pulled the trigger of the gun where it lay.
This time it kicked off and overboard. But just before
darkness rushed over him, he saw the kitchen door open,
and a woman look out of the big log house that was dancing
a monstrous jig among the trees.

CHAPTER IX

Ten days later, Harper and Joe Ladue arrived at Sixty
Mile, and Daylight, still a trifle weak, but strong enough
to obey the hunch that had come to him, traded a third
interest in his Stewart town site for a third interest in theirs
on the Klondike. They had faith in the Upper Country,
and Harper left down-stream, with a raft-load of supplies,
to start a small post at the mouth of the Klondike.

"Why don't you tackle Indian River, Daylight?" Har-
per advised, at parting. "There's whole slathers of creeks
and draws draining in up there, and somewhere gold just
cr3dng to be found. That's my hunch. There's a big
strike coming, and Indian River ain't going to be a million
miles away."

"And the place is swarming with moose," Joe Ladue
added. "Bob Henderson's up there somewhere, been there
three years now, swearing something big is going to hap-
pen, living off'n straight moose and prospecting around like
a crazy man."

Daylight decided to go Indian River a flutter, as he
expressed it; but Elijah could not be persuaded into ac-
companying him. Elijah's soul had been seared by famine,
and he was obsessed by fear of repeating the experience.

"I jest can't bear to separate from grub," he explained.
"I know it's downright foolishness, but I jest can't help
it. It's all I can do to tear myself away from the table
when I know I'm full to bustin' and ain't got storage for
another bite. I'm going back to Circle to camp by a cache
until I get cured."

Daylight lingered a few days longer, gathering strength

87

88 BURNING DAYLIGHT

and arranging his meagre outfit. He planned to go in light,
carrying a pack of seventy-five pounds and making his five
dogs pack as well, Indian fashion, loading them with thirty
pounds each. Depending on the report of Ladue, he in-
tended to follow Bob Henderson's example and live prac-
tically on straight meat. When Jack Kearns' scow, laden
with the sawmill from Lake Linderman, tied up at Sixty
Mile, Daylight bundled his outfit and dogs on board, turned
his town-site application over to Elijah to be filed, and the
same day was landed at the mouth of Indian River.

Forty miles up the river, at what had been described to
him as Quartz Creek, he came upon signs of Bob Hender-
son's work, and also at Australia Creek, thirty miles farther
on. The weeks came and went, but Daylight never encoun-
tered the other man. However, he found moose plentiful,
and he and his dogs prospered on the meat diet. He found
"pay" that was no more than "wages" on a dozen surface
bars, and from the generous spread of flour gold in the
muck and gravel of a score of creeks, he was more confi-
dent than ever that coarse gold in quantity was waiting to
be unearthed. Often he turned his eyes to the northward
ridge of hills, and pondered if the gold came from them.
In the end, he ascended Dominion Creek to its head, crossed
the divide, and came down on the tributary to the Klon-
dike that was later to be called Hunker Creek. While on
the divide, had he kept the big dome on his right, he would
have come down on the Gold Bottom, so named by Bob
Henderson, whom he would have found at work on it, tak-
ing out the first pay-gold ever panned on the Klondike.
Instead, Daylight continued down Hunker to the Klondike,
and on to the summer fishing camp of the Indians on the
Yukon.

Here for a day he camped with Carmack, a squaw-man,
and his Indian brother-in-law, Skookum Jim, bought a
boat, and, with his dogs on board, drifted down the Yukon

BURNING DAYLIGHT 89

to Forty Mile. August was drawing to a close, the days
were growing shorter, and winter was coming on. Still
with unbounded faith in his hunch that a strike was coming
in the Upper Country, his plan was to get together a party
of four or five, and, if that was impossible, at least a part-
ner, and to pole back up the river before the freeze-up to do
winter prospecting. But the men of Forty Mile were with-
out faith. The diggings to the westward were good enough
for them.

Then it was that Carmack, his brother-in-law, Skookum
Jim, and Cultus Charlie, another Indian, arrived in a canoe
at Forty Mile, went straight to the gold commissioner, and
recorded three claims and a discovery claim on Bonanza
Creek. After that, in the Sourdough Saloon, that night,
they exhibited coarse gold to the sceptical crowd. Men
grinned and shook their heads. They had seen the motions
of a gold strike gone through before. This was too patently
a scheme of Harper's and Joe Ladue's, trying to entice pros-
pecting in the vicinity of their town site and trading post.
And who was Carm.ack? A squaw-man. And who ever
heard of a squaw-man striking anything? And what was
Bonanza Creek? Merely a moose pasture, entering the
Klondike just above its mouth, and known to old-timers as
Rabbit Creek. Now if Daylight or Bob Henderson had
recorded claims and shown coarse gold, they'd kno^vn there
was something in it. But Carmack, the squaw-man ! And
Skookum Jim! And Cultus Charlie! No, no; that was
asking too much.

Daylight, too, was sceptical, and this despite his faith
in the Upper Country. Had he not, only a few days before,
seen Carmack loafing with his Indians and with never a
thought of prospecting? But at eleven that night, sitting
on the edge of his bunk and unlacing his moccasins, a
thought came to him. He put on his coat and hat and went
back to the Sourdough. Carmack was still there, flashing

QO BURNING DAYLIGHT

his coarse gold in the eyes of an unbelieving generation.
Daylight ranged alongside of him and emptied Carmack's
sack into a blower. This he studied for a long time. Then,
from his own sack, into another blower, he emptied several
ounces of Circle City and Forty Mile gold. Again, for a long
time, he studied and compared. Finally, he pocketed his own
gold, returned Carmack's, and held up his hand for silence.

"Boys, I want to tell you-all something," he said. "She's
sure come — the up-river strike. And I tell you-all, clear
and forcible, this is it. There ain't never been gold like
that in a blower in this country before. It's new gold.
It's got more silver in it. You-all can see it by the color.
Carmack's sure made a strike. Who-all's got faith to come
along with me?"

There were no volunteers. Instead, laughter and jeers
went up.

"Mebbe you got a town site up there," some one suggested.

"I sure have," was the retort, "and a third interest in
Harper and Ladue's. And I can see my corner lots selling
out for more than your hen-scratching ever turned up on
Birch Creek."

"That's all right. Daylight," one Curly Parson inter-
posed soothingly. "You've got a reputation, and we know
you're dead sure on the square. But you're as likely as any
to be mistook on a flimflam game, such as these loafers is
putting up. I ask you straight: When did Carmack do this
here prospecting? You said yourself he was lying in camp,
fishing salmon along with his Siwash relations, and that was
only the other day."

"And Daylight told the truth," Carmack interrupted
excitedly. "And I'm telling the truth, the gospel truth.
I wasn't prospecting. Hadn't no idea of it. But when
Daylight pulls out, the very same day, who drifts in, down
river, on a raft-load of supplies, but Bob Henderson. He'd
come out to Sixty Mile, planning to go back up Indian

BURNING DAYLIGHT QI

River and portage the grub across the divide between
Quartz Creek and Gold Bottom — "

"Where in hell's Gold Bottom?" Curly Parsons de-
manded.

''Over beyond Bonanza that was Rabbit Creek," the
squaw-man went on. "It's a draw of a big creek that runs
into the Klondike. That's the way I went up, but I come
back by crossing the divide, keeping along the crest several
miles, and dropping down into Bonanza. 'Come along with
me, Carmack, and get staked,' says Bob Henderson to me.
'I've hit it this time, on Gold Bottom. I've took out forty-
five ounces a'ready.' And I went along, Skookum Jim and
Cultus Charlie, too. And we all staked on Gold Bottom.
I come back by Bonanza on the chance of finding a moose.
Along down Bonanza we stopped and cooked grub. I went
to sleep, and what does Skookum Jim do but try his hand at
prospecting. He'd been watching Henderson, you see. He
goes right slap up to the foot of a birch tree, first pan, fills
it with dirt, and washes out more'n a dollar coarse gold.
Then he wakes me up, and I goes at it. I got two and a half
the first lick. Then I named the creek 'Bonanza,' staked
Discovery, and we come here and recorded."

He looked about him anxiously for signs of belief, but
found himself in a^ circle of incredulous faces — all save
Daylight, who had studied his countenance while he told
his story.

"How much is Harper and Ladue givin' you for manu-
facturing a stampede?" some one asked.

"They don't know nothing about it," Carmack answered.
"I tell you it's the God Almighty's truth. I washed out
three ounces in an hour."

"And there's the gold," Daylight said. "I tell you-all
boys they ain't never been gold like that in the blower
before. Look at the color of it."

"A trifle darker," Curly Parson said. "Most likely

92 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Carmack's been carrying a couple of silver dollars along in
the same sack. And what's more, if there's anything in it,
why ain't Bob Henderson smoking along to record?"

''He's up on Gold Bottom," Carmack explained. "We
made the strike coming back."

A burst of laughter was his reward.

'"'Who-all '11 go pardners with me and pull out in a poling-
boat to-morrow for this here Bonanza?" Daylight asked.

No one volunteered.

"Then who-all '11 take a job from me, cash wages in ad-
vance, to pole up a thousand pounds of grub?"

Curly Parsons and another, Pat Monahan, accepted, and,
with his customary speed. Daylight paid them their wages
in advance and arranged the purchase of the supplies,
though he emptied his sack in doing so. He was leaving
the Sourdough, when he suddenly turned back to the bar
from the door.

"Got another hunch?" was the query.

"I sure have," he answered. "Flour's sure going to be
worth what a man will pay for it this winter up on the
Klondike. Who'll lend me some money?"

On the instant a score of the men who had declined to
accompany him on the wild-goose chase were crowding
about him with proffered gold-sacks.

"How much flour do you want?" asked the Alaska Com-
mercial Company's storekeeper.

"About two ton."

The proffered gold-sacks were not withdrawn, though
their owners were guilty of an outrageous burst of merri-
ment.

"What are you going to do with two tons?" the store-
keeper demanded.

"Son," Dayhght made reply, "you-all ain't been in this
country long enough to know all its curves. I'm going to
start a sauerkraut factory and combined dandruff remedy.'*

BURNING DAYLIGHT 93

He borrowed money right and left, engaging and paying
six other men to bring up the flour in half as many more
poling-boats. Again his sack was empty, and he was
heavily in debt.

Curly Parsons bowed his head on the bar with a gesture
of despair.

"What gets me," he moaned, "is what you're going to do
with it all."

"I'll tell you-all in simple A, B, C and one, two, three."
Daylight held up one finger and began checking off.
"Hunch number one: a big strike coming in Upper Country.
Hunch number two: Carmack's made it. Hunch number
three: ain't no hunch at all. It's a cinch. If one and two
is right, then flour just has to go sky-high. If I'm riding
hunches one and two, I just got to ride this cinch, which is
number three. If I'm right, flour '11 balance gold on the
scales this winter. I tell you-all boys, when you-all got a
hunch, play it for all it's worth. What's luck good for, if
you-all ain't to ride it? And when you-all ride it, ride like
hell. I've been years in this country, just waiting for the
right hunch to come along. And here she is. Well, I'm
going to play her, that's all. Good night, you-all; good!
night."

CHAPTER X

Still men were without faith in the strike. When Day-
light, with his heavy outfit of flour, arrived at the mouth of
the Klondike, he found the big flat as desolate and tenant-
less as ever. Down close by the river, Chief Isaac and his
Indians were camped beside the frames on which they were
drying salmon. Several old-timers were also in camp there.
Having finished their summer work on Ten Mile Creek,
they had come down the Yukon, bound for Circle City.
But at Sixty Mile they had learned of the strike, and
stopped off to look over the ground. They had just returned
to their boat when Daylight landed his flour, and their
report was pessimistic.

"Damned moose-pasture," quoth one, Long Jim Harney,
pausing to blow into his tin mug of tea. "Don't you have
nothin' to do with it, Daylight. It's a blamed rotten sell.
They're just going through the motions of a strike. Harper
and Ladue's behind it, and Carmack's the stool-pigeon.
Whoever heard of mining a moose-pasture half a mile be-
tween rim-rock and God alone knows how far to bed-rock!"

Dayhght nodded sympathetically, and considered for a
space.

"Did you-all pan any?" he asked finally.

"Pan hell!" was the indignant answer. "Think I was
born yesterday! Only a chechaquo 'd fool around that
pasture long enough to fill a pan of dirt. You don't catch
me at any such foolishness. One look was enough for me.
We're pulling on in the morning for Circle City. I ain't
never had faith in this Upper Country. Head-reaches of
the Tanana is good enough for me from now on, and mark

94

BURNING DAYLIGHT 95

my words, when the big strike comes, she'll come down
river. Johnny, here, staked a couple of miles below Dis-
covery, but he don't know no better."

Johnny looked shamefaced.

"I just did it for fun," he explained. "I'd give my
chance in the creek for a pound of Star plug."

"I'll go you," Daylight said promptly. "But don't you-
all come squealing if I take twenty or thirty thousand out
of it."

Johnny grinned cheerfully.

"Gimme the tobacco," he said.

"Wish I'd staked alongside," Long Jim murmured plain-
tively.

"It ain't too late," Daylight replied.

"But it's a twenty-mile walk there and back."

"I'll stake it for you to-morrow when I go up," Daylight
offered. "Then you do the same as Johnny. Get the fees
from Tim Logan. He's tending bar in the Sourdough, and
he'll lend it to me. Then fill in your own name, transfer
to me, and turn the papers over to Tim."

"Me, too," chimed in the third old-timer.

And for three pounds of Star plug chewing tobacco, Day-
light bought outright three five-hundred-foot claims on
Bonanza. He could still stake another claim in his own
name, the others being merely transfers.

"Must say you're almighty brash with your chewin'
tobacco," Long Jim grinned. "Got a factory somewheres?"

"Nope, but I got a hunch," was the retort, "and I tell
you-all it's cheaper than dirt to ride her at the rate of three
plugs for three claims."

But an hour later, at his own camp, Joe Ladue strode in,
fresh from Bonanza Creek. At first, non-committal over
Carmack's strike, then, later, dubious, he finally offered
Daylight a hundred dollars for his share in the town site.

"Cash?" Daylight queried.

96 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"Sure. There she is."

So saying, Ladue pulled out his gold-sack. Daylight
hefted it absent-mindedly, and, still absent-mindedly, un-
tied the strings and ran some of the gold-dust out on his
palm. It showed darker than any dust he had ever seen,
with the exception of Carmack's. He ran the gold back,
tied the mouth of the sack, and returned it to Ladue.

"I guess you-all need it more'n I do," was Dayhght's
comment.

"Nope; got plenty more," the other assured him.

"Where that come from?"

Daylight was all innocence as he asked the question, and
Ladue received the question as stolidly as an Indian. Yet
for a swift instant they looked into each other's eyes, and
in that instant an intangible something seemed to flash out
from all the body and spirit of Joe Ladue. And it seemed
to Daylight that he had caught this flash, sensed a secret
something in the knowledge and plans behind the other's
eyes.

"You-all know the creek better'n me," Dayhght went on.
"And if my share in the town site's worth a hundred to you-
all with what you-all know, it's worth a hundred to me
whether I know it or not."

"I'll give you three hundred," Ladue offered desperately,

"Still the same reasoning. No matter what I don't know,
it's worth to me whatever you-all are willing to pay for
it."

Then it was that Joe Ladue shamelessly gave over. He
led Daylight away from the camp and men and told him
things in confidence.

"She's sure there," he said in conclusion. "I didn't sluice
it, or cradle it. I panned it, all in that sack, yesterday, on
the rim-rock. I tell you you can shake it out of the grass-
roots. And what's on bed-rock down in the bottom of
the creek they ain't no way of tellin'. But she's big, I tell

BURNING DAYLIGHT |vJ^Hoi I4. l^l^l

you, big. Keep it quiet, and locate all you can. It's in
spots, but I wouldn't be none surprised if some of them
claims yielded as high as fifty thousand. The only trouble
is that it's spotted."

A month passed by, and Bonanza Creek remained quiet.
A sprinkling of men had staked; but most of them, after
staking, had gone on down to Forty Mile and Circle City.
The few that possessed sufficient faith to remain were busy
building log cabins against the coming of winter. Car-
mack and his Indian relatives were occupied in building
a sluice box and getting a head of water. The work was
slow, for they had to saw their lumber by hand from the
standing forest. But farther down Bonanza were four men
who had drifted in from up river, Dan McGilvary, Dave
McKay, Dave Edwards, and Harry Waugh, They were
a quiet party, neither asking nor giving confidences, and
they herded by themselves. But Daylight, who had panned
the spotted rim of Carmack's claim and shaken coarse
gold from the grass-roots, and who had panned the rim
at a hundred other places up and down the length of the
creek and found nothing, was curious to know what lay on
bed-rock. He had noted the four quiet men sinking a shaft
close by the stream, and he had heard their whip-saw going
as they made lumber for the sluice boxes. He did not
wait for an invitation, but he was present the first day
they sluiced. And at the end of five hours' shovelhng for
one man, he saw them take out thirteen ounces and a half
of gold. It was coarse gold, running from pinheads to a
twelve-dollar nugget, and it had come from off bed-rock.
The first fall snow was flying that day, and the Arctic winter
was closing down; but Daylight had no eyes for the bleak-
gray sadness of the dying, short-lived summer. He saw
his vision coming true, and on the big flat was upreared
anew his golden city of the snows. Gold had been found

9 8 ! BURNING DAYLIGHT

on bed-rock. That was the big thing. Carmack's strike
was assured. Daylight staked a claim in his own name
adjoining the three he had purchased with his plug tobacco.
This gave him a block of property two thousand feet long
and extending in width from rim-rock to rim-rock.

Returning that night to his camp at the mouth of Klon-
dike, he found in it Kama, the Indian he had left at Dyea.
Kama was travelling by canoe, bringing in the last mail of
the year. In his possession was some two hundred dollars
in gold-dust, which Daylight immediately borrowed. In
return, he arranged to stake a claim for him, which he was
to record when he passed through Forty Mile. When
Kama departed next morning, he carried a number of letters
for Daylight, addressed to all the old-timers down river,
in which they were urged to come up immediately and
stake. Also Kama carried letters of similar import, given
him by the other men on Bonanza.

"It will sure be the gosh-dangdest stampede that ever
was," Daylight chuckled, as he tried to vision the excited
populations of Forty Mile and Circle City tumbling into
poling-boats and racing the hundreds of miles up the
Yukon; for he knew that his word would be unquestion-
ingly accepted.

With the arrival of the first stampeders, Bonanza Creek
woke up, and thereupon began a long-distance race between
unveracity and truth, wherein, lie no matter how fast, men
were continually overtaken and passed by truth. When
men who doubted Carmack's report of two and a half to
the pan, themselves panned two and a half, they lied and
said that they were getting an ounce. And long ere the lie
was fairly on its way, they were getting not one ounce but
five ounces. This they claimed was ten ounces; but when
they filled a pan of dirt to prove the lie, they washed out
twelve ounces. And so it went. They continued valiantly
to lie, but the truth continued to outrun them.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 99

One day in December Daylight filled a pan from bed
rock on his own claim and carried it into his cabin. Here
a fire burned and enabled him to keep water unfrozen in
a canvas tank. He squatted over the tank and began to
wash. Earth and gravel seemed to fill the pan. As he
imparted to it a circular movement, the lighter, coarser
particles washed out over the edge. At times he combed
the surface with his fingers, raking out handfuls of gravel.
The contents of the pan diminished. As it drew near to the
bottom, for the purpose of fleeting and tentative examina-
tion, he gave the pan a sudden sloshing movement, empty-
ing it of water. And the whole bottom showed as if covered
with butter. Thus the yellow gold flashed up as the muddy
water was flirted away. It was gold — gold-dust, coarse
gold, nuggets, large nuggets. He was all alone. He set
the pan down for a moment and thought long thoughts.
Then he finished the washing, and weighed the result in his
scales. At the rate of sixteen dollars to the ounce, the pan
had contained seven hundred and odd dollars. It was
beyond anything that even he had dreamed. His fondest
anticipations had gone no farther than twenty or thirty
thousand dollars to a claim; but here were claims worth
half a million each at the least, even if they were spotted.

He did not go back to work in the shaft that day, nor the
next, nor the next. Instead, capped and mittened, a light
stampeding outfit, including his rabbit skin robe, strapped
on his back, he was out and away on a many-days' tramp
over creeks and divides, inspecting the whole neighboring
territory. On each creek he was entitled to locate one
claim, but he was chary in thus surrendering up his chances.
On Hunker Creek only did he stake a claim. Bonanza
Creek he found staked from mouth to source, while every
little draw and pup and gulch that drained into it was like-
wise staked. Little faith was had in these side-streams.
They had been staked by the hundreds of men who had

100 BURNING DAYLIGHT

failed to get in on Bonanza. The most popular of these
creeks was Adams. The one least fancied was Eldorado,
which flowed into Bonanza, just above Carmack's Dis-
covery claim. Even Daylight disliked the looks of Eldo-
rado; but, still riding his hunch, he bought a half share
in one claim on it for half a sack of flour. A month later
he paid eight hundred dollars for the adjoining claim.
Three months later, enlarging this block of property, he
paid forty thousand for a third claim; and, though it was
concealed in the future, he was destined, not long after,
to pay one hundred and fifty thousand for a fourth claim
on the creek that had been the least liked of all the creeks.

In the meantime, and from the day he washed seven hun-
dred dollars from a single pan and squatted over it and
thought a long thought, he never again touched hand to
pick and shovel. As he said to Joe Ladue the night of that
wonderful washing: —

"Joe, I ain't never going to work hard again. Here's
where I begin to use my brains. I'm going to farm gold.
Gold will grow gold if you-all have the savvee and can get
hold of some for seed. When I seen them seven hundred
dollars in the bottom of the pan, I knew I had the seed at
last."

"Where are you going to plant it?" Joe Ladue had asked.

And Daylight, with a wave of his hand, definitely in-
dicated the whole landscape and the creeks that lay beyond
the divides.

"There she is," he said, "and you-all just watch my
smoke. There's millions here for the man who can see
them. And I seen all them millions this afternoon when
them seven hundred dollars peeped up at me from the bot-
tom of the pan and chirruped, 'Well, if here ain't Burning
Daylight come at last.' "

CHAPTER XI

The hero of the Yukon in the younger days before the
Carmack strike, Burning Daylight now became the hero
of the strike. The story of his hunch and how he rode it
was told up and down the land. Certainly he had ridden
it far and away beyond the boldest, for no five of the luck-
iest held the value in claims that he held. And, further-
more, he was still riding the hunch, and with no diminution
of daring. The wise ones shook their heads and prophesied
that he would lose every ounce he had won. He was
speculating, they contended, as if the whole country was
made of gold, and no man could win who played a placer
strike in that fasliion.

On the other hand, his holdings were reckoned as worth
millions, and there were men so sanguine that they held the
man a fool who coppered ^ any bet Daylight laid. Behind
his magnificent free-handedness and careless disregard for
money were hard, practical judgment, imagination and
vision, and the daring of the big gambler. He foresaw
what with his own eyes he had never seen, and he played
to win much or lose all.

"There's too much gold here in Bonanza to be just a
pocket," he argued. "It's sure come from a mother-lode
somewhere, and other creeks will show up. You-all keep
your eyes on Indian River. The creeks that drain that side
the Klondike watershed are just as likely to have gold as
the creeks that drain this side."

And he backed this opinion to the extent of grub-staking
half a dozen parties of prospectors across the big divide

^ To copper: a term in faro, meaning to play a card to lose.

lOI

102 BURNING DAYLIGHT

into the Indian River region. Other men, themselves fail-
ing to stake on lucky creeks, he put to work on his Bonanza
claims. And he paid them well — sixteen dollars a day
for an eight-hour shift, and he ran three shifts. He had
grub to start them on, and when, on the last water, the
Bella arrived loaded with provisions, he traded a warehouse
site to Jack Kearns for a supply of grub that lasted all his
men through the winter of 1896. And that winter, when
famine pinched, and flour sold for two dollars a pound, he
kept three shifts of men at work on all four of the Bonanza
claims. Other mine-owners paid fifteen dollars a day to
their men; but he had been the first to put men to work,
and from the first he paid them a full ounce a day. One
result was that his were picked men, and they more than
earned their higher pay.

One of his wildest plays took place in the early winter
after the freeze-up. Hundreds of stampeders, after staking
on other creeks than Bonanza, had gone on disgruntled
down river to Forty Mile and Circle City. Daylight
mortgaged one of his Bonanza dumps with the Alaska
Commercial Company, and tucked a letter of credit into
his pouch. Then he harnessed his dogs and went down
on the ice at a pace that only he could travel. One Indian
down, another Indian back, and four teams of dogs was his
record. And at Forty ]\Iile and Circle City he bought
claims by the score. Many of these were to prove utterly
worthless, but some few of them were to show up more
astoundingly than any on Bonanza. He bought right and
left, paying as low as fifty dollars and as high as five thou-
sand. This highest one he bought in the Tivoli Saloon. It
was an upper claim on Eldorado, and when he agreed to the
price, Jacob Wilkins, an old-timer just returned from a look
at the moose-pasture, got up and left the room, saying: —

"Daylight, I've known you seven year, and you've always
seemed sensible till now. And now you're just letting them

BURNING DAYLIGHT IO3

rob you right and left. That's what it is — robbery. Five
thousand for a claim on that damned moose-pasture is
bunco. I just can't stay in the room and see you buncoed
that way."

"I tell you-all," Daylight answered, "Wilkins, Carmack's
strike's so big that we-all can't see it all. It's a lottery.
Every claim I buy is a ticket. And there's sure going to
be some capital prizes."

Jacob Wilkins, standing in the open door, sniffed in-
credulously.

''Now supposing, Wilkins," Daylight went on, "suppos-
ing you-all knew it was going to rain soup. What'd you-all
do? Buy spoons, of course. Well, I'm sure buying spoons.
She's going to rain soup up there on the Klondike, and them
that has forks won't be catching none of it."

But Wilkins here slammed the door behind him, and
Daylight broke off to finish the purchase of the claim.

Back in Dawson, though he remained true to his word
and never touched hand to pick and shovel, he worked as
hard as ever in his life. He had a thousand irons in the
fire, and they kept him busy. Representation work was
expensive, and he was compelled to travel often over the
various creeks in order to decide which claims should lapse
and which should be retained. A quartz miner himself in
his early youth, before coming to Alaska, he dreamed of
finding the mother-lode. A placer camp he knew was
ephemeral, while a quartz camp abided, and he kept a score
of men in the quest for months. The mother-lode was
never found, and, years afterward, he estimated that the
search for it had cost him fifty thousand dollars.

But he was playing big. Heavy as were his expenses,
he won more heavily. He took lays, bought half shares,
shared with the men he grub-staked, and made personal
locations. Day and night his dogs were ready, and he
owned the fastest teams ; so that when a stampede to a new

104 BURNING DAYLIGHT

discovery was on, it was Burning Daylight to the fore
through the longest, coldest nights till he blazed his stakes
next to Discovery. In one way or another (to say nothing
of the many worthless creeks) he came into possession of
properties on the good creeks, such as Sulphur, Dominion,
Excelsis, Siwash, Cristo, Alhambra, and Doolittle. The
thousands he poured out flowed back in tens of thousands.
Forty Mile men told the story of his two tons of flour, and
made calculations of what it had returned him that ranged
from half a million to a million. One thing was known
beyond all doubt, namely, that the half share in the first
Eldorado claim, bought by him for a half sack of flour, was
worth five hundred thousand. On the other hand, it was
told that when Freda, the dancer, arrived from over the
passes in a Peterborough canoe in the midst of a drive of
mush-ice on the Yukon, and when she offered a thousand
dollars for ten sacks and could find no sellers, he sent the
flour to her as a present without ever seeing her. In the
same way ten sacks were sent to the lone Catholic priest
who was starting the first hospital.

His generosity was lavish. Others called it insane. At
a time when, riding his hunch, he was getting half a million
for half a sack of flour, it was nothing less than insanity
to give twenty whole sacks to a dancing-girl and a priest.
But it was his way. Money was only a marker. It was
the game that counted with him. The possession of mil-
lions made little change in him, except that he played the
game more passionately. Temperate as he had always been,
save on rare occasions, now that he had the wherewithal
for unlimited drinks and had daily access to them, he drank
even less. The most radical change lay in that, except
when on trail, he no longer did his own cooking. A broken-
down miner lived in his log cabin with him and now cooked
for him. But it was the same food: bacon, beans, flour,
prunes, dried fruits, and rice. He still dressed as formerly:

BURNING DAYLIGHT 10$

overalls, German socks, moccasins, flannel shirt, fur cap,
and blanket coat. He did not take up with cigars, which
cost, the cheapest, from half a dolar to a dollar each. The
same Bull Durham and brown-paper cigarette, hand-rolled,
contented him. It was true that he kept more dogs, and
paid enormous prices for them. They were not a luxury,
but a matter of business. He needed speed in his travelling
and stampeding. And by the same token, he hired a cook.
He was too busy to cook for himself, that was all. It was
poor business, playing for millions, to spend time building
fires and boiling water.

Dawson grew rapidly that winter of 1896. Money poured
in on Daylight from the sale of town lots. He promptly
invested it where it would gather more. In fact, he played
the dangerous game of pyramiding, and no more perilous
pyramiding than in a placer camp could be imagined. But
he played with his eyes wide open.

*'You-all just wait till the news of this strike reaches the
Outside," he told his old-timer cronies in the Moosehorn
Saloon. "The news won't get out till next spring. Then
there's going to be three rushes. A summer rush of men
coming in light; a fall rush of men with outfits; and a spring
rush, the next year after that, of fifty thousand. You-all
won't be able to see the landscape for chechaquos. Well,
there's the summer and fall rush of 1897 to commence with.
What are you-all going to do about it?"

"What are you going to do about it?" a friend demanded.

"Nothing," he answered. "I've sure already done it.
I've got a dozen gangs strung out up the Yukon getting out
logs. You-all '11 see their rafts coming down after the river
breaks. Cabins ! They sure will be worth what a man can
pay for them next fall. Lumber! It will sure go to top-
notch, I've got two sawmills freighting in over the passes.
They'll come down as soon as the lakes open up. And if
you-all are thinking of needing lumber, I'll make you-all

I06 BURNING DAYLIGHT

contracts right now — three hundred dollars a thousand,
undressed."

Corner lots in desirable locations sold that winter for
from ten to thirty thousand dollars. Daylight sent word
out over the trails and passes for the newcomers to bring
down log-rafts, and, as a result, the summer of 1897 saw
his sawmills working day and night, on three shifts, and
still he had logs left over with which to build cabins. These
cabins, land included, sold at from one to several thousand
dollars. Two-story log buildings, in the business part of
town, brought him from forty to fifty thousand dollars
apiece. These fresh accretions of capital were immediately
invested in other ventures. He turned gold over and over,
until everything that he touched seemed to turn to gold.

But that first wild winter of Carmack's strike taught
Daylight many things. Despite the prodigality of his na-
ture, he had poise. He watched the lavish waste of the
mushroom millionaires, and failed quite to understand it.
According to his nature and outlook, it was all very well to
toss an ante away in a night's frolic. That was what he
had done the night of the p>oker-game in Circle City when
he lost fifty thousand — all that he possessed. But he had
looked on that fifty thousand as a mere ante. When it
came to millions, it was different. Such a fortune was a
stake, and was not to be sown on bar-room floors, Uterally
sown, flung broadcast out of the moosehide sacks by drunk-
en millionaires who had lost all sense of proportion. There
was McMann, who ran up a single bar-room bill of thirty-
eight thousand dollars; and Jimmie the Rough, who spent
one hundred thousand a month for four months in riotous
living, and then fell down drunk in the snow one March
night and was frozen to death; and Swiftwater Bill, who,
after spending three valuable claims in an extravagance of
debauchery, borrowed three thousand dollars with which to
leave the country, and who, out of this sum, because the

BURNING DAYLIGHT IO7

lady-love that had jilted him liked eggs, cornered the one
hundred and ten dozen eggs on the Dawson market, paying
twenty-four dollars a dozen for them and promptly feeding
them to the wolf-dogs.

Champagne sold at from forty to fifty dollars a quart,
and canned oyster stew at fifteen dollars. Daylight in-
dulged in no such luxuries. He did not mind treating a
bar-room of men to whiskey at fifty cents a drink, but there
was somewhere in his own extravagant nature a sense of
fitness and arithmetic that revolted against paying fifteen
dollars for the contents of an oyster can. On the other hand,
he possibly spent more money in relieving hard-luck cases
than did the wildest of the new millionaires on insane de-
bauchery. Father Judge, of the hospital, could have told
of far more important donations than that first ten sacks of
flour. And old-timers who came to Daylight invariably
went away relieved according to their need. But fifty dol-
lars for a quart of fizzy champagne! That was appalling.

And yet he still, on occasion, made one of his old-time
hell-roaring nights. But he did so for different reasons.
First, it was expected of him because it had been his way
in the old days. And second, he could afford it. But he
no longer cared quite so much for that form of diversion.
He had developed, in a new way, the taste for power. It
had become a lust with him. By far the wealthiest miner
in Alaska, he wanted to be still wealthier. It was a big game
he was playing in, and he liked it better than any other
game. In a way, the part he played was creative. He was
doing something. And at no time, striking another chord
of his nature, could he take the joy in a million-dollar
Eldorado dump that was at all equivalent to the joy he
took in watching his two sawmills working and the big
down river log-rafts s\^^nging into the bank in the big eddy
just above Moosehide Mountain. Gold, even on the scales,
was, after all, an abstraction. It represented things and

I08 BURNING DAYLIGHT

the power to do. But the sawmills were the things them-
selves, concrete and tangible, and they were things that
were a means to the doing of more things. They were
dreams come true, hard and indubitable realizations of
fairy gossamers.

With the summer rush from the Outside came special
correspondents for the big newspapers and magazines, and
one and all, using unlimited space, they wrote Daylight up;
so that, so far as the world was concerned, Daylight loomed
the largest figure in Alaska. Of course, after several months,
the world became interested in the Spanish War, and for-
got all about him; but in the Klondike itself Daylight still
remained the most prominent figure. Passing along the
streets of Dawson, all heads turned to follow him, and in
the saloons chechaquos watched him. awesomely, scarcely
taking their eyes from him as long as he remained in their
range of vision. Not alone was he the richest man in the
country, but he was Burning Daylight, the pioneer, the
man who, almost in the midst of antiquity of that young
land, had crossed the Chilcoot and drifted down the Yukon
to meet those elder giants, Al Mayo and Jack McQuestion.
He was the Burning Daylight of scores of wild adventures,
the man who carried word to the ice-bound whaling fleet
across the tundra wilderness to the Arctic Sea, who raced
the mail from Circle to Salt Water and back again in sixty
days, who saved the whole Tanana tribe from perishing in
the winter of '91 — in short, the man who smote the che-
chaquos' imaginations more violently than any other dozen
men rolled into one.

He had the fatal facility for self-advertisement. Things
he did, no matter how adventitious or spontaneous, struck
the popular imagination as remarkable. And the latest
thing he had done was always on men's lips, whether it was
being first in the heartbreaking stampede to Danish Creek,
in killing the record baldface grizzly over on Sulphur Creek,

BURNING DAYLIGHT IO9

or in winning the single-paddle canoe race on the Queen's
Birthday, after being forced to participate at the last
moment by the failure of the sourdough representative
to appear. Thus, one night in the Moosehorn, he locked
horns with Jack Kearns in the long-promised return game
of poker. The sky and eight o'clock in the morning were
made the limits, and at the close of the game Daylight's win-
nings were two hundred and thirty thousand dollars. To
Jack Kearns, already a several-times millionaire, this loss
was not vital. But the whole community was thrilled by the
size of the stakes, and each one of the dozen correspondents
in the field sent out a sensational article.

CHAPTER XII

Despite his many sources of revenue, Daylight's pyra-
miding kept him pinched for cash throughout the first win-
ter. The pay-gravel, thawed on bed-rock and hoisted to the
surface, immediately froze again. Thus his dumps, con-
taining several millions of gold, were inaccessible. Not
until the returning sun thawed the dumps and melted the
water to wash them was he able to handle the gold they
contained. And then he found himself with a surplus of
gold, deposited in the two newly organized banks; and he
was promptly besieged by men and groups of men to
enlist his capital in their enterprises.

But he elected to play his o\\ti game, and he entered
combinations only when they were generally defensive or
offensive. Thus, though he had paid the highest wages, he
joined the Mine-owners' Association, engineered the fight,
and effectually curbed the growing insubordination of the
wage-earners. Times had changed. The old days were
gone forever. This was a new era, and Daylight, the
wealthy mine-owner, was loyal to his class affiliations. It
was true, the old-timers who worked for him, in order to be
saved from the club of the organized owners, were made
foremen over the gang of chechaquos ; but this, with Day-
light, was a matter of heart, not head. In his heart he
could not forget the old days, while with his head he played
the economic game according to the latest and most prac-
tical methods.

But outside of such group-combinations of exploiters, he
refused to bind himself to any man's game. He was play-
ing a great lone hand, and he needed all his money for his

no

BURNING DAYLIGHT III

own backing. The newly founded stock-exchange interested
him keenly. He had never before seen such an institution,
but he was quick to see its virtues and to utilize it. Most
of all, it was gambling, and on many an occasion not neces-
sary for the advancement of his own schemes, he, as he
called it, went the stock-exchange a flutter, out of sheer
wantonness and fun.

"It sure beats faro," was his comment one day, when,
after keeping the Dawson speculators in a fever for a week
by alternate bulling and bearing, he showed his hand and
cleaned up what would have been a fortune to any other
man.

Other men, having made their strike, had headed south
for the States, taking a furlough from the grim Arctic
battle. But, asked when he was going Outside, Daylight
always laughed and said when he had finished playing his
hand. He also added that a man was a fool to quit a game
just when a winning hand had been dealt him.

It was held by the thousands of hero-worshipping che-
chaquos that Daylight was a man absolutely without fear.
But Bettles and Dan MacDonald and other sourdoughs
shook their heads and laughed as they mentioned women.
And they were right. He had always been afraid of them
from the time, himself a lad of seventeen, when Queen
Anne, of Juneau, made open and ridiculous love to him.
For that matter, he never had known women. Born in a
mining-camp where they were rare and mysterious, having
no sisters, his mother dying while he was an infant, he had
never been in contact with them. True, running away from
Queen Anne, he had later encountered them on the Yukon
and cultivated an acquaintance with them — the pioneer
ones who crossed the passes on the trail of the men who had
opened up the first diggings. But no lamb had ever walked
with a wolf in greater fear and trembling than had he
walked with them. It was a matter of masculine pride that

112 BURNING DAYLIGHT

he should walk with them, and he had done so in fair seem-
ing; but women had remained to him a closed book, and he
preferred a game of solo or seven-up any time.

And now, known as the King of the Klondike, carrying
several other royal titles, such as Eldorado King, Bonanza
King, the Lumber Baron, and the Prince of the Stampeders,
not to omit the proudest appellation of all, namely, the
Father of the Sourdoughs, he was more afraid of women
than ever. As never before they held out their arms to
him, and more women were flocking into the country day
by day. It mattered not whether he sat at dinner in the
gold commissioner's house, called for the drinks in a dance-
hall, or submitted to an interview from the woman repre-
sentative of the New York Sun, one and all of them held
out their arms.

There was one exception, and that was Freda, the girl
that danced, and to whom he had given the flour. She was
the only woman in whose company he felt at ease, for she
alone never reached out her arms. And yet it was from
her that he was destined to receive next to his severest
fright. It came about in the fall of 1897. He was return-
ing from one of his dashes, this time to inspect Henderson,
a creek that entered the Yukon just below the Stewart.
Winter had come on with a rush, and he fought his way
down the Yukon seventy miles in a frail Peterborough canoe
in the midst of a run of mush-ice. Hugging the rim-ice
that had already solidly formed, he shot across the ice-
spewing mouth of the Klondike just in time to see a lone
man dancing excitedly on the rim and pointing into the
water. Next, he saw the fur-clad body of a woman, face
under, sinking in the midst of the driving mush-ice. A lane
opening in the swirl of the current, it was a matter of sec-
onds to drive the canoe to the spot, reach to the shoulder
in the water, and draw the woman gingerly to the canoe's
side. It was Freda. And all might yet have been well with

BURNING DAYLIGHT II3

him, had she not, later, when brought back to consciousness,
blazed at him with angry blue eyes and demanded: "Why
did you? Oh, why did you?"

This worried him. In the nights that followed, instead
of sinking immediately to sleep as was his wont, he lay
awake, visioning her face and that blue blaze of wrath, and
conning her words over and over. They rang with sincerity.
The reproach was genuine. She had meant just what she
said. And still he pondered.

The next time he encountered her she had turned away
from him angrily and contemptuously. And yet again,
she came to him to beg his pardon, and she dropped a hint
of a man somewhere, sometime, — she said not how, — who
had left her with no desire to live. Her speech was frank,
but incoherent, and all he gleaned from it was that the
event, whatever it was, had happened years before. Also,
he gleaned that she had loved the man.

That was the thing — love. It caused the trouble. It
was more terrible than frost or famine. Women were all
very well, in themselves good to look upon and likable; but
along came this thing called love, and they were seared to
the bone by it, made so irrational that one could never
guess what they would do next. This Freda-woman was
a splendid creature, full-bodied, beautiful, and nobody's
fool; but love had come along and soured her on the world,
driving her to the Klondike and to suicide so compellingly
that she was made to hate the man that saved her life.

Well, he had escaped love so far, just as he had escaped
smallpox; yet there it was, as contagious as smallpox, and
a whole lot worse in running its course. It made men and
women do such fearful and unreasonable things. It was
like delirium tremens, only worse. And if he, Daylight,
caught it, he might have it as badly as any of them. It was
lunacy, stark lunacy, and contagious on top of it all. A
half dozen young fellows were crazy over Freda. They

114 BURNING DAYLIGHT

all wanted to marry her. Yet she, in turn, was crazy over
that some other fellow on the other side of the world, and
would have nothing to do with them.

But it was left to the Virgin to give him his final fright.
She was found one morning dead in her cabin. A shot
through the head had done it, and she had left no message,
no explanation. Then came the talk. Some wit, voicing
public opinion, called it a case of too much Daylight. She
had killed herself because of him. Everybody knew this,
and said so. The correspondents wrote it up, and once
more Burning Daylight, King of the Klondike, was sensa-
tionally featured in the Sunday supplements of the United
States. The Virgin had straightened up, so the feature-
stories ran, and correctly so. Never had she entered a
Dawson City dance-hall. When she first arrived from
Circle City, she had earned her living by washing clothes.
Next, she had bought a sewing-machine and made men's
drill parkas, fur caps, and moosehide mittens. Then she
had gone as a clerk into the First Yukon Bank. All this,
and more, was known and told, though one and all were
agreed that Daylight, while the cause, had been the innocent
cause of her untimely end.

And the worst of it was that Daylight knew it was true.
Always would he remember that last night he had seen her.
He had thought nothing of it at the time; but, looking
back, he was haunted by every little thing that had hap-
pened. In the light of the tragic event, he could understand
everything — her quietness, that calm certitude as if all
vexing questions of living had been smoothed out and were
gone, and that certain ethereal sweetness about all that she
had said and done that had been almost maternal. He re-
membered the way she had looked at him, how she had
laughed when he narrated Mickey Dolan's mistake in stak-
ing the fraction on Skookum Gulch, Her laughter had been
lightly joyous, while at the same time it had lacked its old-

BURNING DAYLIGHT II 5

time robustness. Not that she had been grave or subdued.
On the contrary, she had been so patently content, so filled
with peace. She had fooled him, fool that he was. He
had even thought that night that her feeling for him had
passed, and he had taken delight in the thought, and caught
visions of the satisfying future friendship that would be
theirs with this perturbing love out of the way.

And then, when he stood at the door, cap in hand, and
said good night. It had struck him at the time as a funny
and embarrassing thing, her bending over his hand and
kissing it. He had felt like a fool, but he shivered now
when he looked back on it and felt again the touch of her
lips on his hand. She was saying good-by, an eternal
good-by, and he had never guessed. At that very moment,
and for all the moments of the evening, coolly and deliber-
ately, as he well knew her way, she had been resolved to die.
If he had only known it! Untouched by the contagious
malady himself, nevertheless he would have married her if
he had had the slightest inkling of what she contemplated.
And yet he knew, furthermore, that hers was a certain
stiff-kneed pride that would not have permitted her to
accept marriage as an act of philanthropy. There had
really been no saving her, after all. The love-disease had
fastened upon her, and she had been doomed from the first
to perish of it.

Her one possible chance had been that he, too, should
have caught it. And he had failed to catch it. Most
likely, if he had, it would have been from Freda or some
other woman. There was Dartworthy, the college man
who had staked the rich fraction on Bonanza above Dis-
covery. Everybody knew that old Doolittle's daughter.
Bertha, was madly in love with him. Yet, when he con-
tracted the disease, of all women, it had been with the
wife of Colonel Walthstone, the great Guggenhammer min-
ing expert. Result, three lunacy cases: Dartworthy selling

Il6 BURNING DAYLIGHT

out his mine for one-tenth its value; the poor woman
sacrificing her respectability and sheltered nook in society
to flee with him in an open boat down the Yukon; and
Colonel Walthstone, breathing murder and destruction,
taking out after them in another open boat. The whole
impending tragedy had moved on down the muddy Yukon,
passing Forty Mile and Circle and losing itself in the wil-
derness beyond. But there it was, love, disorganizing men's
and women's lives, driving toward destruction and death,
turning topsy-turvy everything that was sensible and con-
siderate, making bawds or suicides out of virtuous women,
and scoundrels and murderers out of men who had always
been clean and square.

For the first time in his life Daylight lost his nerve.
He was badly and avowedly frightened. Women were
terrible creatures, and the love-germ was especially plenti-
ful in their neighborhood. And they were so reckless, so
devoid of fear. They were not frightened by what had hap-
pened to the Virgin. They held out their arms to him more
seductively than ever. Even without his fortune, reckoned
as a mere man, just past thirty, magnificently strong and
equally good-looking and good-natured, he was a prize for
most normal women. But when to his natural excellences
were added the romance that linked with his name and the
enormous wealth that was his, practically every free woman
he encountered measured him with an appraising and de-
lighted eye, to say nothing of more than one woman who
was not free. Other men might have been spoiled by this
and led to lose their heads; but the only effect on him was
to increase his fright. As a result he refused most invita-
tions to houses where women might be met, and frequented
bachelor boards and the Moosehorn Saloon, which had no
dance-hall attached.

CHAPTER XIII

Six thousand spent the winter of 1897 in Dawson, work
on the creeks went on apace, while beyond the passes it was
reported that one hundred thousand more were waiting for
the spring. Late one brief afternoon, Dayhght, on the
benches between French Hill and Skookum Hill, caught a
wider vision of things. Beneath him lay the richest part of
Eldorado Creek, while up and down Bonanza he could see
for miles. It was a scene of a vast devastation. The hills,
to their tops, had been shorn of trees, and their naked sides
showed signs of goring and perforating that even the mantle
of snow could not hide. Beneath him, in every direction,
were the cabins of men. But not many men were visible.
A blanket of smoke filled the valleys and turned the gray
day to melancholy twilight. Smoke arose from a thousand
holes in the snow, where, deep down on bed-rock, in the
frozen muck and gravel, men crept and scratched and dug,
and ever built more fires to break the grip of the frost.
Here and there, where new shafts were starting, these fires
flamed redly. Figures of men crawled out of the holes, or
disappeared into them, or, on raised platforms of hand-
hewn timber, windlassed the thawed gravel to the surface,
where it immediately froze. The wreckage of the spring
washing appeared everywhere — piles of sluice-boxes, sec-
tions of elevated flumes, huge water-wheels, — all the debris
of an army of gold-mad men.

"It-all's plain gophering," Daylight muttered aloud.

He looked at the naked hills and realized the enormous
wastage of wood that had taken place. From this bird's-
eye view he realized the monstrous confusion of their

117

Il8 BURNING DAYLIGHT

excited workings. It was a gigantic inadequacy. Each
worked for himself, and the result was chaos. In this
richest of diggings it cost one dollar to mine two dollars,
and for every dollar taken out by their feverish, unthinking
methods another dollar was left hopelessly in the earth.
Given another year, and most of the claims would be
worked out, and the sum of the gold taken out would no
more than equal what was left behind.

Organization was what was needed, he decided; and his
quick imagination sketched Eldorado Creek, from mouth to
source, and from mountain top to mountain top, in the hands
of one capable management. Even steam-thawing, as yet
untried, but bound to come, he saw would be a makeshift.
What should be done was to hydraulic the valley sides and
benches, and then, on the creek bottom, to use gold-dredges
such as he had heard described as operating in California.

There was the very chance for another big kilUng. He
had wondered just what was precisely the reason for the
Guggenhammers and the big English concerns sending in
their high-salaried experts. That was their scheme. That
was why they had approached him for the sale of worked-
out claims and tailings. They were content to let the
small mine-owners gopher out what they could, for there
would be millions in the leavings.

And, gazing down on the smoky inferno of crude effort,
Daylight outlined the new game he would play, a game
in which the Guggenhammers and the rest would have to
reckon with him. But along with the delight in the new
conception came a weariness. He was tired of the long
Arctic years, and he was curious about the Outside — the
great world of which he had heard other men talk and of
which he was as ignorant as a child. There were games
out there to play. It was a larger table, and there was no
reason why he with his millions should not sit in and take
a hand. So it was, that afternoon on Skookum Hill, that

BURNING DAYLIGHT 119

he resolved to play this last best Klondike hand and pull
for the Outside.

It took time, however. He put trusted agents to work on
the heels of great experts, and on the creeks where they
began to buy he likewise bought. Wherever they tried to
corner a worked-out creek, they found him standing in the
way, owning blocks of claims or artfully scattered claims
that put all their plans to naught.

"I play you-all wide open to win — am I right?" he told
them once, in a heated conference.

Followed wars, truces, compromises, victories, and de-
feats. By 1898, sixty thousand men were on the Klondike,
and all their fortunes and affairs rocked back and forth
and were affected by the battles Daylight fought. And
more and more the taste for the larger game urged in Day-
light's mouth. Here he was already locked in grapples with
the great Guggenhammers, and winning, fiercely winning.
Possibly the severest struggle was waged on Ophir, the
veriest of moose-pastures, whose low-grade dirt was valu-
able only because of its vastness. The ownership of a block
of seven claims in the heart of it gave Daylight his grip,
and they could not come to terms. The Guggenhammer
experts concluded that it was too big for him to handle, and
when they gave him an ultimatum to that effect he accepted
and bought them out.

The plan was his own, but he sent down to the States for
competent engineers to carry it out.. In the Rinkabilly
watershed, eighty miles away, he built his reservoir, and
for eighty miles the huge wooden conduit carried the water
across country to Ophir. Estimated at three millions, the
reservoir and conduit cost nearer four. Nor did he stop
with this. Electric power plants were installed, and his
workings were lighted as well as run by electricity. Other
sourdoughs, who had struck it rich in excess of all their
dreams, shook their heads gloomily, warned him that he

120 BURNING DAYLIGHT

would go broke, and declined to invest in so extravagant a
venture. But Daylight smiled, and sold out the remainder
of his town-site holdings. He sold at the right time, at the
height of the placer boom. When he prophesied to his old
cronies, in the Moosehorn Saloon, that within five years
town lots in Dawson could not be given away, while the
cabins would be chopped up for firewood, he was laughed at
roundly, and assured that the mother-lode would be found
ere that time. But he went ahead, when his need for lum-
ber was finished, selling out his sawmills as well. Likewise,
he began to get rid of his scattered holdings on the various
creeks, and without thanks to any one he finished his con-
duit, built his dredges, imported his machinery, and made
the gold of Ophir immediately accessible. And he, who
five years before had crossed over the divide from Indian
River and threaded the silent wilderness, his dogs packing
Indian fashion, himself living Indian fashion on straight
moose meat, now heard the hoarse whistles calling his hun-
dreds of laborers to work, and watched them toil under the
white glare of the arc-lamps.

But having done the thing, he was ready to depart. And
when he let the word go out, the Guggenhammers vied with
the English concerns and with a new French company in
bidding for Ophir and all its plant. The Guggenhammers
bid highest, and the price they paid netted Daylight a clean
million. It was current rumor that he was worth anywhere
from twenty to thirty milHons. But he alone knew just
how he stood, and that, with his last claim sold and the
table swept clean of his winnings, he had ridden his hunch
to the tune of just a trifle over eleven millions.

His departure was a thing that passed into the history of
the Yukon along with his other deeds. All the Yukon was
his guest, Dawson the seat of the festivity. On that one
last night no man's dust save his own was good. Drinks
were not to be purchased. Every saloon ran open, with

BURNING DAYLIGHT 121

extra relays of exhausted bartenders, and the drinks were
given away. A man who refused this hospitaUty, and per-
sisted in pajdng, found a dozen fights on his hands. The
veriest chechaquos rose up to defend the name of DayUght
from such insult. And through it all, on moccasined feet,
moved Daylight, hell-roaring Burning Daylight, over-spill-
ing with good nature and camaraderie, howling his he-wolf
howl and claiming the night as his, bending men's arms
down on the bars, performing feats of strength, his bronzed
face flushed with drink, his black eyes flashing, clad in
overalls and blanket coat, his ear-flaps dangling and his
gauntleted mittens swinging from the cord across the
shoulders. But this time it was neither an ante nor a stake
that he threw away, but a mere marker in the game that he
who held so many markers would not miss.

As a night, it eclipsed anything that Dawson had ever
seen. It was Daylight's desire to make it memorable, and
his attempt was a success. A goodly portion of Dawson
got drunk that night. The fall weather was on, and, though
the freeze-up of the Yukon still delayed, the thermometer
was down to twenty-five below zero and falling. Where-
fore, it was necessary to organize gangs of life-savers, who
patrolled the streets to pick up drunken men from where
they fell in the snow and where an hour's sleep would be
fatal. Daylight, whose whim it was to make them drunk
by hundreds and by thousands, was the one who initiated
this life-saving. He wanted Dawson to have its night, but,
in his deeper processes never careless nor wanton, he saw
to it that it was a night without accident. And, like his
olden nights, his ukase went forth that there should be no
quarrelling nor fighting, offenders to be dealt with by him
personally. Nor did he have to deal with any. Hundreds
of devoted followers saw to it that the evilly disposed were
rolled in the snow and hustled off to bed. In the great
world, where great captains of industry die, all wheels

122 BURNING DAYLIGHT

under their erstwhile management are stopped for a min-
ute. But in the Klondike, such was its hilarious sorrow at
the departure of its captain, that for twenty-four hours no
wheels revolved. Even great Ophir, with its thousand men
on the pay-roll, closed down. On the day after the night
there were no men present or fit to go to work-
Next morning, at break of day, Dawson said good-by.
The thousands that lined the bank wore mittens and their
ear-flaps pulled down and tied. It was thirty below zero,
the rim-ice was thickening, and the Yukon carried a run of
mush-ice. From the deck of the Seattle, Daylight waved
and called his farewells. As the lines were cast off and the
steamer swung out into the current, those near him saw the
moisture well up in Daylight's eyes. In a way, it was to
him departure from his native land, this grim Arctic region
which was practically the only land he had known. He
tore off his cap and waved it.

"Good-by, you-all ! " he called. "Good-by, you-all ! "

PART II
CHAPTER I

In no blaze of glory did Burning Daylight descend upon
San Francisco. Not only had he been forgotten, but the
Klondike along with him. The world was interested in
other things, and the Alaskan adventure, like the Spanish
War, was an old story. Many things had happened since
then. Exciting things were happening every day, and the
sensation-space of newspapers was limited. The effect of
being ignored, however, was an exhilaration. Big man as
he had been in the Arctic game, it merely showed how much
bigger was this new game, when a man worth eleven mil-
lions, and with a history such as his, passed unnoticed.

He settled down in St. Francis Hotel, was interviewed by
the cub-reporters on the hotel-run, and received brief para-
graphs of notice for twenty-four hours. He grinned to him-
self, and began to look around and get acquainted with the
new order of beings and things. He was very awkward
and very self-possessed. In addition to the stiffening af-
forded his backbone by the conscious ownership of eleven
millions, he possessed an enormous certitude. Nothing
abashed him, nor was he appalled by the display and culture
and power around him. It was another kind of wilder-
ness, that was all ; and it was for him to learn the ways of
it, the signs and trails and water-holes where good hunting
lay, and the bad stretches of field and flood to be avoided.
As usual, he fought shy of the women. He was still too
badly scared to come to close quarters with the dazzling
and resplendent creatures his own millions made accessible.

123

124 BURNING DAYLIGHT

They looked and longed, but he so concealed his timidity
that he had all the seeming of moving boldly among them.
Nor was it his wealth alone that attracted them. He was
too much a man, and too much an unusual type of man.
Young yet, barely thirty-six, eminently handsome, magnifi-
cently strong, almost bursting with a splendid \drility, his
free trail-stride, never learned on pavements, and his black
eyes, hinting of great spaces and unwearied with the close
perspective of the city dwellers, drew many a curious and
wayward feminine glance. He saw, grinned knowingly to
himself, and faced them as so many dangers, with a cool
demeanor that was a far greater personal achievement than
had they been famine, frost, or flood.

He had come down to the States to play the man's game,
not the woman's game; and the men he had not yet learned.
They struck him as soft — soft physically; yet he divined
them hard in their dealings, but hard under an exterior of
supple softness. It struck him that there was something
cat-like about them. He met them in the clubs, and won-
dered how real was the good-fellowship they displayed and
how quickly they would unsheathe their claws and gouge
and rend. "That's the proposition," he repeated to him-
self; "what will they-all do when the play is close and down
to brass tacks?" He felt unwarrantably suspicious of
them. "They're sure slick," was his secret judgment; and
from bits of gossip dropped now and again he felt his judg-
ment well buttressed. On the other hand, they radiated an
atmosphere of manliness and the fair play that goes with
manliness. They might gouge and rend in a fight — which
was no more than natural ; but he felt, somehow, that they
would gouge and rend according to rule. This was the
impression he got of them — a generalization tempered by
knowledge that there was bound to be a certain percentage
of scoundrels among them.

Several months passed in San Francisco, during which

Il

GEHSI'ILIAN f BURNING DAYLIGHT 12$

time he studied the game and its rules, and prepared him-
self to take a hand. He even took private instruction in
English, and succeeded in eliminating his worst faults,
though in moments of excitement he was prone to lapse into
"you-all," "knowed," "sure," and similar solecisms. He
learned to eat and dress and generally comport himself after
the manner of civilized man ; but through it all he remained
himself, not unduly reverential nor considerative, and never
hesitating to stride rough-shod over any soft-faced conven-
tion if it got in his way and the provocation were great
enough. Also, and unlike the average run of weaker men
coming from back countries and far places, he failed to
reverence the particular tin gods worshipped variously by
the civilized tribes of men. He had seen totems before, and
knew them for what they were.

Tiring of being merely an onlooker, he ran up to Nevada,
where the new gold-mining boom was fairly started — "just
to try a flutter," as he phrased it to himself. The flutter
on the Tonopah Stock Exchange lasted just ten days, dur^
ing which time his smashing, wild-bull game played ducks
and drakes with the more stereotyped gamblers, and at
the end of which time, having gambled Floridel into his fist,
he let go for a net profit of half a million. Whereupon,
smacking his lips, he departed for San Francisco and the
St. Francis Hotel. It tasted good, and his hunger for the
game became more acute.

And once more the papers sensationalized him. BURN-
ING DAYLIGHT was a big-letter headline again. Inter-
viewers flocked about him. Old files of magazines and
newspapers were searched through, and the romantic and
historic Elam Harnish, Adventurer of the Frost, King of
the Klondike, and father of the Sourdoughs, strode upon the
breakfast table of a million homes along with the toast and
breakfast foods. Even before his elected time, he was forc-
ibly launched into the game. Financiers and promoters,

126 BURNING DAYLIGHT

and all the flotsam and jetsam of the sea of speculation
surged upon the shores of his eleven millions. In self-
defence he was compelled to open offices. He had made
them sit up and take notice, and now, willy-nilly, they were
dealing him hands and clamoring for him to play. Well,
play he would; he'd show 'em; even despite the elated
prophesies made of how swiftly he would be trimmed —
prophesies coupled with descriptions of the bucolic game he
would play and of his wild and woolly appearance.

He dabbled in httle things at first — "stalling for time,"
as he explained it to Holdsworthy, a friend he had made at
the Alta-Pacific Club. Daylight himself was a member of
the club, and Holdsworthy had proposed him. And it was
well that Daylight played closely at first, for he was as-
tounded by the multitudes of sharks — "ground-sharks,"
he called them — that flocked about him. He saw through
their schemes readily enough, and even marvelled that such
numbers of them could find sufficient prey to keep them
going. Their rascality and general dubiousness was so
transparent that he could not understand how any one
could be taken in by them.

And then he found that there were sharks and sharks.
Holdsworthy treated him more like a brother than a mere
fellow-clubman, watching over him, advising him, and in-
troducing him to the magnates of the local financial world.
Holdsworthy's family lived in a delightful bungalow near
Menlo Park, and here Daylight spent a number of week-
ends, seeing a fineness and kindness of home life of which
he had never dreamed. Holdsworthy was an enthusiast
over flowers, and a half lunatic over raising prize poultry;
and these engrossing madnesses were a source of perpetual
joy to Daylight, who looked on in tolerant good humor.
Such amiable weaknesses tokened the healthfulness of the
man, and drew Daylight closer to him. A prosperous,
successful business man without great ambition, was

BURNING DAYLIGHT I27

Daylight's estimate of him — a man too easily satisfied
with the small stakes of the game ever to launch out in
big play.

On one such week-end visit, Holdsworthy let him in on
a good thing, a good little thing, a brickyard at Glen Ellen.
Daylight listened closely to the other's description of the
situation. It was a most reasonable venture, and Day-
light's one objection was that it was so small a matter and
so far out of his line; and he went into it only as a matter
of friendship, Holdsworthy explaining that he was himself
already in a bit, and that while it was a good thing, he would
be compelled to make sacrifices in other directions in order
to develop it. Daylight advanced the capital, fifty thousand
dollars, and, as he laughingly explained afterward, "I was
stung, all right, but it wasn't Holdsworthy that did it half
as much as those blamed chickens and fruit-trees of his."

It was a good lesson, however, for he learned that there
were few faiths in the business world, and that even the
simple, homely faith of breaking bread and eating salt
counted for little in the face of a worthless brickyard and
fifty thousand dollars in cash. But the sharks and sharks
of various orders and degrees, he concluded, were on the
surface. Deep down, he divined, were the integrities and
the stabilities. These big captains of industry and masters
of finance, he decided, were the men to work with. By the
very nature of their huge deals and enterprises they had
to play fair. No room there for little sharpers' tricks and
bunco games. It was to be expected that little men should
salt gold-mines with a shotgun and work off worthless brick-
yards on their friends, but in high finance such methods
were not worth while. There the men were engaged in
developing the country, organizing its railroads, opening up
its mines, making accessible its vast natural resources.
Their play was bound to be big and stable. ''They sure
can't afford tin-horn tactics," was his summing up.

128 BURNING DAYLIGHT

So it was that he resolved to leave the little men, thu
Holdsworthys, alone; and, while he met them in good-fel^
lowship, he chummed with none, and formed no deep friend-
ships. He did not dislike the little men, the men of the
Alta-Pacific, for instance. He merely did not elect to
choose them for partners in the big game in which he
intended to play. What that big game was, even he did
not know. He was waiting to find it. And in the mean*
time he played small hands, investing in several arid-lands
reclamation projects and keeping his eyes open for the big
chance when it should come along.

And then he met John Dowsett, the great John Dowsett.
The whole thing was fortuitous. This cannot be doubted.
As Daylight himself knew, it was by the merest chance,
when in Los Angeles, that he heard the tuna were running
strong at Santa Catalina, and went over to the island in-
stead of returning directly to San Francisco as he had
planned. There he met John Dowsett, resting off for sev-
eral days in the middle of a flying western trip. Dowsett
had of course heard of the spectacular Klondike King and
his rumored thirty millions, and he certainly found himself
interested by the man in the acquaintance that was formed.
Somewhere along in this acquaintanceship the idea must
have popped into his brain. But he did not broach it, pre-
ferring to mature it carefully. So he talked in large gen-
eral ways, and did his best to be agreeable and win
Daylight's friendship.

It was the first big magnate Daylight had met face to
face, and he was pleased and charmed. There was such a
kindly humanness about the man, such a genial democratic-
ness, that Daylight found it hard to realize that this was the
John Dowsett, president of a string of banks, insurance
manipulator, reputed ally of the lieutenants of Standard
Oil, and known ally of the Guggenhammers. Nor did his
looks belie his reputation and his manner.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 1 29

Physically, he guaranteed all that Daylight knew of him.
Despite his sixty years and snow-white hair, his hand-shake
was firmly hearty, and he showed no signs of decrepitude,
walking with a quick, snappy step, making all movements
definitely and decisively. His skin was a healthy pink, and
his thin, clean lips knew the way to writhe heartily over a
joke. He had honest blue eyes of palest blue ; they looked
out at one keenly and frankly from under shaggy gray
brows. His mind showed itself disciplined and orderly, and
its workings struck Daylight as having all the certitude of
a steel trap. He was a man who knew and who never deco-
rated his knowledge with foolish frills of sentiment or emo-
tion. That he was accustomed to command was patent,
and every word and gesture tingled with power. Combined
with this was his sympathy and tact, and Daylight could
note easily enough all the earmarks that distinguished him
from a little man of the Holds worthy caliber. Daylight
knew also his history, the prime old American stock from
which he had descended, his own war record, the John
Dowsett before him who had been one of the banking but-
tresses of the Cause of the Union, the Commodore Dowsett
of the War of 1812, the General Dowsett of Revolutionary
fame, and that first far Dowsett, owner of lands and slaves
in early New England.

"He's sure the real thing," he told one of his fellow-club-
men afterwards, in the smoking-room of the Alta-Pacific.
"I tell you. Gallon, he was a genuine surprise to me. I knew
the big ones had to be like that, but I had to see him to
really know it. He's one of the fellows that does things.
You can see it sticking out all over him. He's one in a
thousand, that's straight, a man to tie to. There's no limit
to any game he plays, and you can stack on it that he plays
right up to the handle. I bet he can lose or win half a dozen
million without batting an eye."

Gallon puffed at his cigar, and at the conclusion of the

130 BURNING DAYLIGHT

panegyric regarded the other curiously; but Daylight, or-
dering cocktails, failed to note this curious stare.

"Going in with him on some deal, I suppose," Gallon
remarked.

"Nope, not the slightest idea. — Here's kindness. I was
just explaining that I'd come to understand how these big
fellows do big things. Why, d'ye know, he gave me such
a feeling that he knew everything, that I was plumb
ashamed of myself."

"I guess I could give him cards and spades when it comes
to driving a dog-team, though," Daylight observed, after
a meditative pause. "And I really believe I could put him
on to a few wrinkles in poker and placer mining, and maybe
in paddHng a birch canoe. And maybe I stand a better
chance to learn the game he's been playing all his life than
he would stand of learning the game I played up North."

CHAPTER II

It was not long afterward that Daylight came on to New
York. A letter from John Dowsett had been the cause —
a simple little typewritten letter of several lines. But Day-
light had thrilled as he read it. He remembered the thrill
that was his, a callow youth of fifteen, when, in Tempas
Butte, through lack of a fourth man, Tom Galsworthy, the
gambler, had said, ''Get in, Kid; take a hand." That thrill
was his now. The bald, typewritten sentences seemed
gorged with mystery. "Our Mr. Howison will call upon
you at your hotel. He is to be trusted. We must not be seen
together. You will understand after we have had our talk."
Daylight conned the words over and over. That was it.
The big game had arrived, and it looked as if he were being
invited to sit in and take a hand. Surely, for no other
reason would one man so peremptorily invite another man
to make a journey across the continent.

They met — thanks to "our" Mr. Howison, — up the
Hudson, in a magnificent country home. Daylight, accord-
ing to instructions, arrived in a private motor-car which
had been furnished him. Whose car it was he did not know
any more than did he know the owner of the house, with
its generous, rolling, tree-studded lawns. Dowsett was al-
ready there, and another man whom Daylight recognized
before the introduction was begun. It was Nathaniel
Letton, and none other. Daylight had seen his face a score
of times in the magazines and newspapers, and read about
his standing in the financial world and about his endowed
University of Daratona. He, likewise, struck Daylight as
a man of power, though he was puzzled in that he could find

131

132 BURNING DAYLIGHT

no likeness to Dowsett. Except in the matter of cleanness,
— a cleanness that seemed to go down to the deepest fibers
of him, — Nathaniel Letton was unlike the other in every
particular. Thin to emaciation, he seemed a cold flame of
a man, a man of a mysterious, chemic sort of flame, who,
under a glacier-like exterior, conveyed, somehow, the im-
pression of the ardent heat of a thousand suns. His large
gray eyes were mainly responsible for this feeling, and they
blazed out feverishly from what was almost a death's-head,
so thin was the face, the skin of which was a ghastly, dull,
dead white. Not more than fifty, thatched with a sparse
growth of iron-gray hair, he looked several times the age of
Dowsett. Yet Nathaniel Letton possessed control — Day-
light could see that plainly. He was a thin-faced ascetic,
living in a state of high, attenuated calm — a molten planet
under a transcontinental ice sheet. And yet, above all,
most of all. Daylight was impressed by the terrific and al-
most awful cleanness of the man. There was no dross in
him. He had all the seeming of having been purged by fire.
Daylight had the feeling that a healthy man-oath would
be a deadly offence to his ears, a sacrilege and a blasphemy.

They drank — that is, Nathaniel Letton took mineral
water served by the smoothly operating machine of a lackey
who inhabited the place, while Dowsett took Scotch and
soda and Daylight a cocktail. Nobody seemed to notice
the unusualness of a Martini at midnight, though Daylight
looked sharply for that very thing; for he had long since
learned that Martinis had their strictly appointed times and
places. But he liked Martinis, and, being a natural man,
he chose deliberately to drink when and how he pleased.
Others had noticed this peculiar habit of his, but not so
Dowsett and Letton; and Daylight's secret thought was:
''They sure wouldn't bat an eye if I called for a glass of
corrosive sublimate."

Leon Guggenhammer arrived in the midst of the drink,

BURNING DAYLIGHT 1 33

and ordered Scotch, Daylight studied him curiously. This
was one of the great Guggenhammer family; a younger
one, but nevertheless one of the crowd with which he had
locked grapples in the North. Nor did Leon Guggenham-
mer fail to mention cognizance of that old affair. He
complimented Daylight on his prowess — ''The echoes of
Ophir came down to us, you know. And I must say, Mr.
Daylight — er, Mr. Harnish, that you whipped us roundly
in that affair."

Echoes! Dayhght could not escape the shock of the
phrase — echoes had come down to them of the fight into
which he had flung all his strength and the strength of his
Klondike millions. The Guggenhammers sure must go
some when a fight of that dimension was no more than a
skirmish of which they deigned to hear echoes. "They sure
play an almighty big game down here," was his conclusion,
accompanied by a corresponding elation that it was just
precisely that almighty big game in which he was about
to be invited to play a hand. For the moment he poignantly
regretted that rumor was not true, and that his eleven mil-
lions were not in reality thirty millions. Well, that much
he would be frank about; he would let them know exactly
how many stacks of chips he could buy.

Leon Guggenhammer was young and fat. Not a day
more than thirty, his face, save for the adumbrated puff
sacks under the eyes, was as smooth and lineless as a boy's.
He, too, gave the impression of cleanness. He showed in
the pink of health; his unblemished, smooth-shaven skin
shouted advertisement of his splendid physical condition.
In the face of that perfect skin, his very fatness and mature,
rotund paunch could be nothing other than normal. He
was constituted to be prone to fatness, that was all.

The talk soon centred down to business, though Guggen-
hammer had first to say his say about the forthcoming
international yacht race and about his own palatial steam

134 BURNING DAYLIGHT

yacht, the Electra, whose recent engines were already anti-
quated. Dowsett broached the plan, aided by an occa-
sional remark from the other two, while Daylight asked
questions. Whatever the proposition was, he was going
into it with his eyes open. And they filled his eyes with
the practical vision of what they had in mind.

"They will never dream you are with us," Guggen-
hammer interjected, as the outlining of the matter drew to
a close, his handsome Jewish eyes flashing enthusiastically.
"They'll think you are raiding on your own in proper buc-
caneer style."

"Of course, you understand, Mr, Harnish, the absolute
need for keeping our alliance in the dark," Nathaniel Letton
warned gravely.

Daylight nodded his head.

"And you also understand," Letton went on, "that the
result can only be productive of good. The thing is legiti-
mate and right, and the only ones who may be hurt are
the stock gamblers themselves. It is not an attempt to
smash the market. As you see yourself, you are to bull the
market. The honest investor will be the gainer."

"Yes, that's the very thing," Dowsett said. "The com-
mercial need for copper is continually increasing. Ward
Valley Copper, and all that it stands for, — practically one-
quarter of the world's supply, as I have shown you, — is a
big thing, how big, even we can scarcely estimate. Our
arrangements are made. We have plenty of capital our-
selves, and yet we want more. Also, there is too much
Ward Valley out to suit our present plans. Thus we kill
both birds with one stone — "

"And I am the stone," Daylight broke in with a smile.

"Yes, just that. Not only will you bull Ward Valley,
but you will at the same time gather Ward Valley in. This
will be of inestimable advantage to us, while you and all of
us will profit by it as well. And as Mr. Letton has pointed

BUENING DAYLIGHT 135

out, the thing is legitimate and square. On the eighteenth
the directors meet, and, instead of the customary dividend,
a double dividend will be declared."

"And where will the shorts be then?" Leon Guggen-
hammer cried excitedly.

"The shorts will be the speculators," Nathaniel Letton
explained, "the gamblers, the froth of Wall Street — you
understand. The genuine investors will not be hurt. Fur-
thermore, they will have learned for the thousandth time
to have confidence in Ward Valley. And with their confi-
dence we can carry through the large developments we have
outhned to you."

"There will be all sorts of rumors on the street," Dowsett
warned Daylight, "but do not let them frighten you. These
rumors may even originate with us. You can see how and
why clearly. But rumors are to be no concern of yours.
You are on the inside. All you have to do is buy, buy, buy,
and keep on buying to the last stroke, when the directors
declare the double dividend. Ward Valley will jump so that
it won't be feasible to buy after that."

"What we want," Letton took up the strain, pausing-
significantly to sip his mineral water, "what we want is to
take large blocks of Ward Valley off the hands of the public.
We could do this easily enough by depressing the market
and frightening the holders. And we could do it more
cheaply in such fashion. But we are absolute masters of
the situation, and we are fair enough to buy Ward Valley
on a rising market. Not that we are philanthropists, but
that we need the investors in our big development scheme.
Nor do we lose directly by the transaction. The instant
the action of the directors becomes known. Ward Valley
will rush heavenward. In addition, and outside the legiti-
mate field of the transaction, we will pinch the shorts for
a very large sum. But that is only incidental, you under-
stand, and, in a way, unavoidable. On the other hand, we

136 BURNING DAYLIGHT

shall not turn up our noses at that phase of it. The shorts
shall be the veriest gamblers, of course, and they will get
no more than they deserve."

"And one other thing, Mr. Harnish," Guggenhammer
said, "if you exceed your available cash, or the amount
you care to invest in the venture, don't fail immediately
to call on us. Remember, we are behind you."

"Yes, we are behind you," Dowsett repeated.

Nathaniel Letton nodded his head in affirmation.

"Now about that double dividend on the eighteenth — "
John Dowsett drew a slip of paper from his note-book and
adjusted his glasses. "Let me show you the figures. Here,
you see . . ."

And thereupon he entered into a long technical and his-
torical explanation of the earnings and dividends of Ward
Valley from the day of its organization.

The whole conference lasted not more than an hour,
during which time Daylight lived at the topmost of the
highest peak of life that he had ever scaled. These men
were big players. They were powers. True, as he knew
himself, they were not the real inner circle. They did not
rank with the Morgans and Harrimans. And yet they
were in touch with those giants and were themselves lesser
giants. He was pleased, too, with their attitude toward
him. They met him deferentially, but not patronizingly.
It was the deference of equality, and Daylight could not
escape the subtle flattery of it; for he was fully aware that
in experience as well as wealth they were far and away
beyond him.

"We'll shake up the speculating crowd," Leon Guggen-
hammer proclaimed jubilantly, as they rose to go. "And
you are the man to do it, Mr. Harnish. They are bound
to think you are on your own, and their shears are all sharp-
ened for the trimming of newcomers like you."

"They will certainly be misled," Letton agreed, his eerie

BURNING DAYLIGHT I37

gray eyes blazing out from the voluminous folds of the
huge muffler with which he was swathing his neck to the
ears. "Their minds run in ruts. It is the unexpected that
upsets their stereotyped calculations — any new combina-
tion, any strange factor, any fresh variant. And you will
be all that to them, Mr. Harnish. And I repeat, they are
gamblers, and they will deserve all that befalls them. They
clog and cumber all legitimate enterprise. You have no
idea of the trouble they cause men like us — sometimes, by
their gambling tactics, upsetting the soundest plans, even
overturning the stablest institutions."

Dowsett and young Guggenhammer went away in one
motor-car, and Letton by himself in another. Daylight,
with still in the forefront of his consciousness all that had
occurred in the preceding hour, was deeply impressed by
the scene at the moment of departure. The three machines
stood like weird night monsters at the gravelled foot of the
wide stairway under the unlighted porte-cochere. It was a
dark night, and the lights of the motor-cars cut as sharply
through the blackness as knives would cut through solid
substance. The obsequious lackey — the automatic genie
of the house which belonged to none of the three men, —
stood like a graven statue after having helped them in.
The fur-coated chauffeurs bulked dimly in their seats. One
after the other, like spurred steeds, the cars leaped into the
blackness, took the curve of the driveway, and were gone.

Daylight's car was the last, and, peering out, he caught
a glimpse of the unlighted house that loomed hu^ly through
the darkness like a mountain. Whose was it? he wondered.
How came they to use it for their secret conference? Would
the lackey talk? How about the chauffeurs? Were they
trusted men like "our" Mr. Howison? Mystery? The
affair was alive with it. And hand in hand with mystery
walked Power. He leaned back and inhaled his cigarette
Big things were afoot. The cards were shuffled even theu

138 BURNING DAYLIGHT

for a mighty deal, and he was in on it. He remembered
back to his poker games with Jack Kearns, and laughed
aloud. He had played for thousands in those days on the
turn of a card; but now he was playing for millions. And
on the eighteenth, when that dividend was declared, he
chuckled at the confusion that would inevitably descend
upon the men with the sharpened shears waiting to trim
him — him, Burning Daylight.

CHAPTER III

Back at his hotel, though nearly two in the morning, he
found the reporters waiting to interview him. Next morn-
ing there were more. And thus, with blare of paper trum-
pet, was he received by New York. Once more, with beat-
ing of toms-toms and wild hullaballoo, his picturesque figure
strode across the printed sheet. The King of the Klondike,
the hero of the Arctic, the thirty-million-dollar millionaire
of the North, had come to New York. What had he come
for? To trim the New Yorkers as he had trimmed the
Tonopah crowd in Nevada? Wall Street had best watch
out, for the wild man of Klondike had just come to town.
Or, perchance, would Wall Street trim him? Wall Street
had trimmed many wild men ; would this be Burning Day-
light's fate? Daylight grinned to himself, and gave out
ambiguous interviews. It helped the game, and he grinned
again, as he meditated that Wall Street would sure have to
go some before it trimmed him.

They were prepared for him to play, and, when heavy
buying of Ward Valley began, it was quickly decided that
he was the operator. Financial gossip buzzed and hummed.
He was after the Guggenhammers once more. The story
of Ophir was told over again and sensationalized until even
Daylight scarcely recognized it. Still, it was all grist to
his mill. The stock gamblers were clearly befooled. Each
day he increased his buying, and so eager were the sell-
ers that Ward Valley rose but slowly. "It sure beats
poker," Daylight whispered gleefully to himself, as he
noted the perturbation he was causing. The newspapers

139

140 BURNING DAYLIGHT

hazarded countless guesses and surmises, and Daylight was
constantly dogged by a small battalion of reporters. His
own interviews were gems. Discovering the delight the
newspapers took in his vernacular, in his "you-alls," and
"sures," and ''surge-ups," he even exaggerated these pecu-
liarities of speech, exploiting the phrases he had heard other
frontiersmen use, and inventing occasionally a new one of
his own.

A wildly exciting time was his during the week preceding
Thursday the eighteenth. Not only was he gambling as he
had never gambled before, but he was gambling at the big-
gest table in the world and for stakes so large that even the
case-hardened habitues of that table were compelled to sit
up. In spite of the unlimited selling, his persistent buying
compelled Ward Valley steadily to rise, and as Thursday
approached, the situation became acute. Something had
to smash. How much Ward Valley was this Klondike
gambler going to buy? How much could he buy? What
was the Ward Valley crowd doing all this time? Daylight
appreciated the interviews with them that appeared — in-
terviews delightfully placid and non-committal. Leon
Guggenhammer even hazarded the opinion that this North-
land Croesus might possibly be making a mistake. But not
that they cared, John Dowsett explained. Nor did they
object. While in the dark regarding his intentions, of one
thing they were certain ; namely, that he was bulling Ward
Valley. And they did not mind that. No matter what
happened to him and his spectacular operations. Ward
Valley was all right, and would remain all right, as firm
as the Rock of Gibraltar. No; they had no Ward Valley
to sell, thank you. This purely fictitious state of the
market was bound shortly to pass, and Ward Valley was
not to be induced to change the even tenor of its way by
any insane stock exchange flurry. "It is purely gambling
from beginning to end," were Nathaniel Letton's words;

BURNING DAYLIGHT I4I

"and we refuse to have anything to do with it or to take
notice of it in any way."

During this time Daylight had several secret meetings
with his partners — one with Leon Guggenhammer, one
with John Dowsett, and two with Mr, Howison. Beyond
congratulations, they really amounted to nothing; for, as
he was informed, everything was going satisfactorily.

But on Tuesday morning a rumor that was disconcert-
ing came to Daylight's ears. It was also published in the
Wall Street Journal, and it was to the effect, on apparently
straight inside information, that on Thursday, when the
directors of Ward Valley met, instead of the customary
dividend being declared, an assessment would be levied. It
was the first check Daylight had received. It came to him
with a shock that if the thing were so he was a broken
man. And it also came to him that all this colossal operat-
ing of his was being done on his own money. Dowsett,
Guggenhammer, and Letton were risking nothing. It was
a panic, short-lived, it was true, but sharp enough while it
lasted to make him remember Holdsworthy and the brick-
yard, and to impel him to cancel all buying orders while
he rushed to a telephone.

"Nothing in it — only a rumor," came Leon Guggen-
hammer's throaty voice in the receiver. "As you know,"
said Nathaniel Letton, "I am one of the directors, and I
should certainly be aware of it were such action contem-
plated." And John Dowsett: "I warned you against just
such rumors. There is not an iota of truth in it — certainly
not. I tell you on my honor as a gentleman."

Heartily ashamed of himself for his temporary loss of
nerve. Daylight returned to his task. The cessation of
buying had turned the Stock Exchange into a bedlam, and
down all the line of stocks the bears were smashing. Ward
Valley, as the apex, received the brunt of the shock, and
was already beginning to tumble. Daylight calmly doubled

142 BURNING DAYLIGHT

his buying orders. And all through Tuesday and Wednes-
day, and Thursday morning, he went on buying, while Ward
Valley rose triumphantly higher. Still they sold, and still
he bought, exceeding his power to buy many times over,
when dehvery was taken into account. What of that? On
this day the double dividend would be declared, he assured
himself. The pinch of delivery would be on the shorts.
They would be making terms with him.

And then the thunderbolt struck. True to the rumor,
Ward Valley levied the assessment. Daylight threw up his
arms. He verified the report and quit. Not alone Ward
Valley, but all securities were being hammered down by
the triumphant bears. As for Ward Valley, Daylight did
not even trouble to learn if it had fetched bottom or was still
tumbling. Not stunned, not even bewildered, while Wall
Street went mad. Daylight withdrew from the field to think
it over. After a short conference with his brokers, he pro-
ceeded to his hotel, on the way picking up the evening
papers and glancing at the head-Knes. BURNING DAY-
LIGHT CLEANED OUT, he read; DAYLIGHT GETS
HIS; ANOTHER WESTERNER FAILS TO FIND
EASY MONEY. As he entered his hotel, a later edition
announced the suicide of a young man, a lamb, who had
followed Daylight's play. What in hell did he want to kill
himself for? was Daylight's muttered comment.

He passed up to his rooms, ordered a Martini cocktail,
took off his shoes, and sat down to think. After half an
hour he roused himself to take the drink, and as he felt the
liquor pass warmingly through his body, his features re-
laxed into a slow, deliberate, yet genuine grin. He was
laughing at himself.

"Buncoed, by gosh!" he muttered.

Then the grin died away, and his face grew bleak and
serious. Leaving out his interests in the several Western
reclamation projects (which were still assessing heavily),

BURNING DAYLIGHT I43

he was a ruined man. But harder hit than this was his
pride. He had been so easy. They had gold-bricked him,
and he had nothing to show for it. The simplest farmer
would have had documents, while he had nothing but a
gentleman's agreement, and a verbal one at that. Gentle-
man's agreement! He snorted over it. John Dowsett's
voice, just as he had heard it in the telephone receiver,
sounded in his ears the words, "On my honor as a gentle-
man." They were sneak-thieves and swindlers, that was
what they were, and they had given him the double-cross.
The newspapers were right. He had come to New York to
be trimmed, and Messrs. Dowsett, Letton, and Guggenham-
mer had done it. He was a little fish, and they had played
with him ten days — ample time in which to swallow him,
along with his eleven millions. Of course, they had been
unloading on him all the time, and now they were buying
Ward Valley back for a song ere the market righted itself.
Most probably, out of his share of the swag, Nathaniel
Letton would erect a couple of new buildings for that uni-
versity of his. Leon Guggenhammer would buy new engines
for that yacht, or a whole fleet of yachts. But what the
devil Dowsett would do with his whack, was beyond him
— most likely start another string of banks.

And Daylight sat and consumed cocktails and saw back
in his life to Alaska, and lived over the grim years in which
he had battled for his eleven millions. For a while murder
ate at his heart, and wild ideas and sketchy plans of killing
his betrayers flashed through his mind. That was what
that young man should have done instead of killing him-
self. He should have gone gunning. Daylight unlocked his
grip and took out his automatic pistol — a big Colt's .44.
He released the safety catch with his thumb, and, operating
the sliding outer barrel, ran the contents of the clip through
the mechanism. The eight cartridges slid out in a stream.
He refilled the clip, threw a cartridge into the chamber, and,

144 BURNING DAYLIGHT

with the trigger at full cock, thrust up the safety ratchet.
He shoved the weapon into the side pocket of his coat,
ordered another Martini, and resumed his seat.

He thought steadily for an hour, but he grinned no more.
Lines formed in his face, and in those lines were the travail
of the North, the bite of the frost, all that he had achieved
and suffered — the long, unending weeks of trail, the bleak
tundra shore of Point Barrow, the smashing ice-jam of the
Yukon, the battles with animals and men, the lean-dragged
days of famine, the long months of stinging hell among the
mosquitoes of the Koyokuk, the toil of pick and shovel, the
scars and mars of pack-strap and tump-line, the straight
meat diet with the dogs, and all the long procession of
twenty full years of toil and sweat and endeavor.

At ten o'clock he arose and pored over the city directory.
Then he put on his shoes, took a cab, and departed into the
night. Twice he changed cabs, and finally fetched up at
the night office of a detective agency. He superintended
the thing himself, laid down money in advance in profuse
quantities, selected the six men he needed, and gave them
their instructions. Never, for so simple a task, had they
been so well paid; for, to each, in addition to office charges,
he gave a five-hundred-dollar bill, with the promise of
another if he succeeded. Some time next day, he was
convinced, if not sooner, his three silent partners would
come together. To each one two of his detectives were to
be attached. Time and place was all he wanted to learn.

''Stop at nothing, boys," were his final instructions. "I
must have this information. Whatever you do, whatever
happens, I'll sure see you through."

Returning to his hotel, he changed cabs as before, went
up to his room, and with one more cocktail for a nightcap,
went to bed and to sleep. In the morning he dressed and
shaved, ordered breakfast and the newspapers sent up, and
waited. But he did not drink. By nine o'clock his tele-

BURNING DAYLIGHT 14$

phone began to ring and the reports to come in. Nathaniel
Letton was taking the train at Tarrytown. John Dowsett
was coming down by the subway. Leon Guggenhammer
had not stirred out yet, though he was assuredly within.
And in this fashion, with a map of the city spread out before
him, Daylight followed the movements of his three men as
they drew together. Nathaniel Letton was at his offices
in the Mutual-Solander Building. Next arrived Guggen-
hammer. Dowsett was still in his own offices. But at
eleven came the word that he also had arrived, and several
minutes later Daylight was in a hired motor-car and speed-
ing for the Mutual-Solander Building.

CHAPTER IV

Nathaniel Letton was talking when the door opened;
he ceased, and with his two companions gazed with con-
trolled perturbation at Burning Daylight striding into the
room. The free, swinging movements of the trail-traveller
were unconsciously exaggerated in that stride of his. In
truth, it seemed to him that he felt the trail beneath his
feet.

"Howdy, gentlemen, howdy," he remarked, ignoring the
unnatural calm with which they greeted his entrance. He
shook hands with them in turn, striding from one to an-
other and gripping their hands so heartily that Nathaniel
Letton could not forbear to wince. Daylight flung himself
into a massive chair and sprawled lazily, with an appear-
ance of fatigue. The leather grip he had brought into the
room he dropped carelessly beside him on the floor.

"Goddle mighty, but I've sure been going some," he
sighed. "We sure trimmed them beautiful. It was real
slick. And the beauty of the play never dawned on me
till the very end. It was pure and simple knock down and
drag out. And the way they fell for it was amazin'."

The geniality in his lazy Western drawl reassured them.
He was not so formidable, after all. Despite the fact that
he had effected an entrance in the face of Letton's instruc-
tions to the outer office, he showed no indication of making
a scene or playing rough.

"Well," DayHght demanded good-humoredly, "ain't you-
all got a good word for your pardner? Or has his sure
enough brilliance plumb dazzled you-all?"

146

BURNING DAYLIGHT 147

Letton made a dry sound in his throat. Dowsett sat
quietly and waited, while Leon Guggenhammer struggled
into articulation.

"You have certainly raised Cain," he said.

Dayhght's black eyes flashed in a pleased way.

"Didn't I, though!" he proclaimed jubilantly. "And
didn't we fool 'em! I was teetotally surprised. I never
dreamed they would be that easy.

"And now," he went on, not permitting the pause to
grow awkward, "we-all might as well have an accounting.
I'm pullin' West this afternoon on that blamed Twentieth
Century." He tugged at his grip, got it open, and dipped
into it with both his hands. "But don't forget, boys, when
you-all want me to hornswoggle Wall Street another flutter,
all you-all have to do is whisper the word. I'll sure be
right there "with the goods."

His hands emerged, clutching a great mass of stubs,
check-books, and broker's receipts. These he deposited in
a heap on the big table, and dipping again, he fished out the
stragglers and added them to the pile. He consulted a
slip of paper, drawn from his coat pocket, and read
aloud: —

"Ten million twenty-seven thousand and forty-two dol-
lars and sixty-eight cents is my figurin' on my expenses.
Of course that-all's taken from the winnings before we-all
get to figurin' on the whack-up. Where's your figures? It
must a' been a Goddle mighty big clean-up."

The three men looked their bepuzzlement at one another.
The man was a bigger fool than they had imagined, or else
he was playing a game which they could not divine.

Nathaniel Letton moistened his lips and spoke up.

"It will take some hours yet, Mr, Harnish, before the full
accounting can be made. Mr. Howison is at work upon it
now. We — ah — as you say, it has been a gratifying
clean-up. Suppose we have lunch together and talk it over.

148 BURNING DAYLIGHT

I'll have the clerks work through the noon hour, so that
you will have ample time to catch your train."

Dowsett and Guggenhammer manifested a relief that was
almost obvious. The situation was clearing. It was dis-
concerting, under the circumstances, to be pent in the same
room with this heavy-muscled, Indian-like man whom they
had robbed. They remembered unpleasantly the many
stories of his strength and recklessness. If Letton could
only put him off long enough for them to escape into the
policed world outside the office door, all would be well; and
Daylight showed all the signs of being put off.

"I'm real glad to hear that," he said. "I don't want to
miss that train, and you-all have done me proud, gentlemen,
letting me in on this deal. I just do appreciate it without
being able to express my feelings. But I am sure almighty
curious, and I'd like terrible to know, Mr. Letton, what your
figures of our winning is. Can you-all give me a rough
estimate?'^

Nathaniel Letton did not look appealingly at his two
friends, but in the brief pause they felt that appeal pass
out from him. Dowsett, of sterner mould than the others,
began to divine that the Klondiker was playing. But the
other two were still under the blandishment of his child-like
innocence.

"It is extremely — er — difficult," Leon Guggenhammer
began. "You see. Ward Valley has fluctuated so, er — "

"That no estimate can possibly be made in advance,"
Letton supplemented.

"Approximate it, approximate it," Daylight counselled
cheerfully. "It don't hurt if you-all are a million or so out
one side or the other. The figures '11 straighten that up.
But I'm that curious I'm just itching all over. What d'ye
say?"

"Why continue to play at cross purposes?" Dowsett
demanded abruptly and coldly. "Let us have the explana-

BURNING DAYLIGHT 149

tion here and now. Mr. Harnish is laboring under a false
impression, and he should be set straight. In this deal — "

But Daylight interrupted. He had played too much
poker to be unaware or unappreciative of the psychological
factor, and he headed Dowsett off in order to play the de-
nouement of the present game in his own way.

"Speaking of deals," he said, "reminds me of a poker
game I once seen in Reno, Nevada. It wa'n't what you-
all would call a square game. They-all was tin-horns that
sat in. But they was a tenderfoot — short-horns they-all
are called out there. He stands behind the dealer and sees
that same dealer give hisself four aces off en the bottom of
the deck. The tenderfoot is sure shocked. He slides
around to the player facin' the dealer across the table.

" 'Say,' he whispers, 'I seen the dealer deal hisself four
aces.'

" 'Well, an' what of it?' says the player.

" 'I'm tryin' to tell you-all because I thought you-all
ought to know,' says the tenderfoot. 'I tell you-all I seen
him deal hisself four aces.'

" 'Say, mister,' says the player, 'you-all 'd better get outa
here. You-all don't understand the game. It's his deal,
ain't it?' "

The laughter that greeted his story was hollow and per-
functory, but Daylight appeared not to notice it.

"Your story has some meaning, I suppose," Dowsett
said pointedly.

Daylight looked at him innocently and did not reply.
He turned jovially to Nathaniel Letton.

"Fire away," he said. "Give us an approximation of
our winning. As I said before, a million out one way or the
other won't matter, it's bound to be such an almighty big
winning."

By this time Letton was stiffened by the attitude Dowsett
had taken, and his answer was prompt and definite.

150 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"I fear you are under a misapprehension, Mr. Harnish.
There are no winnings to be divided with you. Now
don't get excited, I beg of you. I have but to press this
button . . ."

Far from excited. Daylight had all the seeming of being
stunned. He felt absently in his vest pocket for a match,
lighted it, and discovered that he had no cigarette. The
three men watched him with the tense closeness of cats.
Now that it had come, they knew that they had a nasty few
minutes before them.

"Do you-all mind saying that over again?" Daylight
said. "Seems to me I ain't got it just exactly right. You-
all said . . . ?"

He hung with painful expectancy on Nathaniel Letton's
utterance.

"I said you were under a misapprehension, Mr. Harnish,
that was all. You have been stock gambling, and you have
been hard hit. But neither Ward Valley, nor I, nor my
associates, feel that we owe you anything."

Daylight pointed at the heap of receipts and stubs on
the table.

"That-all represents ten million twenty-seven thousand
and forty-two dollars and sixty-eight cents, hard cash.
Ain't it good for anything here?"

Letton smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

Daylight looked at Dowsett and murmured: —

"I guess that story of mine had some meaning, after
all." He laughed in a sickly fashion. "It was your deal
all right, and you-all dole them right, too. Well, I ain't
kicking. I'm like the player in that poker game. It was
your deal, and you-all had a right to do your best. And you
done it — cleaned me out slicker'n a whistle."

He gazed at the heap on the table with an air of stupe-
faction.

"And that-all ain't worth the paper it's written on. Gol

BURNING DAYLIGHT l$l

dast it, you-all can sure deal 'em 'round when you get a
chance. Oh, no, I ain't a-kicking. It was your deal, and
you-all certainly done me, and a man ain't half a man that
squeals on another man's deal. And now the hand is played
out, and the cards are on the table, and the deal's over,
but . . ."

His hand, dipping swiftly into his inside breast pocket,
appeared with the big Colt's automatic.

"As I was saying, the old deal's finished. Now it's my
deal, and I'm a-going to see if I can hold them four aces —

"Take your hand away, you whited sepulchre! " he cried
sharply.

Nathaniel Letton's hand, creeping toward the push-but-
ton on the desk, was abruptly arrested.

"Change cars," Daylight commanded. "Take that chair
over there, you gangrene-livered skunk. Jump! By God!
or I'll make you leak till folks '11 think your father was a
water hydrant and your mother a sprinkling-cart. You-all
move your chair alongside, Guggenhammer ; and you-all
Dowsett, sit right there, while I just irrelevantly explain
the virtues of this here automatic. She's loaded for big
game and she goes off eight times. She's a sure hummer
when she gets started.

"Preliminary remarks being over, I now proceed to deal.
Remember, I ain't making no remarks about your deal.
You done your darndest, and it was all right. But this is
my deal, and it's up to me to do my darndest. In the first
place, you-all know me. I'm Burning Daylight — savvee?
Ain't afraid of God, devil, death, nor destruction. Them's
my four aces, and they sure copper your bets. Look at
that there living skeleton. Letton, you're sure afraid to
die. Your bones is all rattling together you're that scared.
And look at that fat Jew there. This little weapon's sure
put the fear of God in his heart. He's yellow as a sick
persimmon. Dowsett, you're a cool one. You-all ain't

152 BURNING DAYLIGHT

batted an eye nor turned a hair. That's because you're
great on arithmetic. And that makes you-all dead easy in
this deal of mine. You're sitting there and adding two and
two together, and you-all know I sure got you skinned. You
know me, and that I ain't afraid oi nothing. And you-all
adds up all your money and knows you ain't a-going to die
if you can help it."

"I'll see you hanged," was Dowsett's retort.

"Not by a damned sight. When the fun starts, you're
the first I plug. I'll hang all right, but you-all won't live
to see it. You-all die here and now while I'll die subject
to the law's delay — savvee? Being dead, with grass grow-
ing out of your carcasses, you won't know when I hang,
but I'll sure have the pleasure a long time of knowing you-
all beat me to it."

Daylight paused.

"You surely wouldn't kill us?" Letton asked in a queer,
thin voice.

Daylight shook his head.

"It's sure too expensive. You-all ain't worth it. I'd
sooner have my chips back. And I guess you-all 'd sooner
give my chips back than go to the dead-house."

A long silence followed.

"Well, I've done dealt. It's up to you-all to play. But
while you're deliberating, I want to give you-all a warning:
if that door opens and any one of you cusses lets on there's
anything unusual, right here and then I sure start plugging.
They ain't a soul '11 get out the room except feet first."

A long session of three hours followed. The deciding
factor was not the big automatic pistol, but the certitude
that Daylight would use it. Not alone were the three men
convinced of this, but Daylight himself was convinced.
He was firmly resolved to kill the men if his money was not
forthcoming. It was not an easy matter, on the spur of the
moment, to raise ten millions in paper currency, and there

BURNING DAYLIGHT 1 53

were vexatious delays. A dozen times Mr. Howison and
the head clerk were summoned into the room. On these
occasions the pistol lay on Daylight's lap, covered care-
lessly by a newspaper, while he was usually engaged in
rolling or lighting his brown-paper cigarettes. But in the
end, the thing was accomplished. A suit-case was brought
up by one of the clerks from the waiting motor-car, and
Daylight snapped it shut on the last package of bills. He
paused at the door to make his final remarks,

*' There's three several things I sure want to tell you-all.
When I get outside this door, you-all '11 be set free to act,
and I just want to warn you-all about what to do. In the
first place, no warrants for my arrest — sawee? This
money's mine, and I ain't robbed you of it. If it gets out
how you gave me the double cross and how I done you back
again, the laugh '11 be on you, and it'll sure be an almighty
big laugh. You-all can't afford that laugh. Besides, having
got back my stake that you-all robbed me of, if you arrest
me and try to rob me a second time, I'll go gunning for you-
all, and I'll sure get you. No httle fraid-cat shrimps like
you-all can skin Burning Daylight. If you win you lose,
and there'll sure be some several unexpected funerals
around this burg. Just look me in the eye, and you-all '11
sawee I mean business. Them stubs and receipts on the
table is all yourn. Good day."

As the door shut behind him, Nathaniel Letton sprang
for the telephone, and Dowsett intercepted him,

"What are you going to do?" Dowsett demanded.

"The police. It's downright robbery. I won't stand it.
I tell you I won't stand it."

Dowsett smiled grimly, but at the same time bore the
slender financier back and down into his chair.

"We'll talk it over," he said; and in Leon Guggenham-
mer he found an anxious ally.

And nothing ever came of it. The thing remained a

154 BURNING DAYLIGHT

secret with the three men. Nor did DayHght ever give
the secret away, though that afternoon, leaning back in his
stateroom on the Twentieth Century, his shoes off, and feet
on a chair, he chuckled long and heartily. New York
remained forever puzzled over the affair; nor could it hit
upon a rational explanation. By all rights. Burning Day-
light should have gone broke, yet it was known that he
immediately reappeared in San Francisco possessing an
apparently unimpaired capital. This was evidenced by
the magnitude of the enterprises he engaged in, such as,
for instance, Panama Mail, by sheer weight of money and
fighting power wresting the control away from Sheftly and
selling out in two months to the Harriman interests at a
rumored enormous advance.

CHAPTER V

Back in San Francisco, Daylight quickly added to his
reputation. In ways it was not an enviable reputation.
Men were afraid of him. He became known as a fighter,
a fiend, a tiger. His play was a ripping and smashing one,
and no one knew where or how his next blow would fall.
The element of surprise was large. He balked on the
unexpected, and, fresh from the wild North, his mind not
operating in stereotyped channels, he was able in unusual
degree to devise new tricks and stratagems. And once he
won the advantage, he pressed it remorselessly. "As re-
lentless as a Red Indian," was said of him, and it was said
truly.

On the other hand, he was known as "square." His
word was as good as his bond, and this despite the fact that
he accepted nobody's word. He always shied at proposi-
tions based on gentlemen's agreements, and a man who
ventured his honor as a gentleman, in dealing with Day-
light, inevitably was treated to an unpleasant time. Day-
light never gave his own word unless he held the whip-hand.
It was a case with the other fellow taking it or nothing.

Legitimate investment had no place in Daylight's play.
It tied up his money, and reduced the element of risk. It
was the gambling side of business that fascinated him, and
to play in his slashing manner required that his money must
be ready to hand. It was never tied up save for short
intervals, for he was principally engaged in turning it over
and over, raiding here, there, and everywhere, a veritable
pirate of the financial main. A five-per cent safe invest-
ment had no attraction for him; but to risk millions in a

155

IS6 BURNING DAYLIGHT

sharp, harsh skirmish, standing to lose everything or to win
fifty or a hundred per cent, was the savor of life to him.
He played according to the rules of the game, but he played
mercilessly. When he got a man or a corporation down,
and they squealed, he gouged no less hard. Appeals for
financial mercy fell on deaf ears. He was a free lance, and
had no friendly business associations. Such alliances as
were formed from time to time were purely affairs of
expediency, and he regarded his allies as men who would
give him the double-cross or ruin him if a profitable chance
presented. In spite of this point of view, he was faithful to
his alHes. But he was faithful just as long as they were
and no longer. The treason had to come from them, and
then it was 'Ware Daylight.

The business men and financiers of the Pacific coast
never forgot the lesson of Charles KJinkner and the Cali-
fornia & Altamont Trust Company. Klinkner was the
president. In partnership with Daylight, the pair raided
the San Jose Interurban. The powerful Lake Power &
Electric Lighting corporation came to the rescue, and
Klinkner, seeing what he thought was the opportunity, went
over to the enemy in the thick of the pitched battle. Day-
light lost three millions before he was done with it, and
before he was done with it he saw the California & Altamont
Trust Company hopelessly wrecked, and Charles Klinkner
a suicide in a felon's cell. Not only did Daylight lose his
grip on San Jose Interurban, but in the crash of his battle
front he lost heavily all along the line. It was conceded by
those competent to judge that he could have compromised
and saved much. But, instead, he deliberately threw up
the battle with San Jose Interurban and Lake Power, and,
apparently defeated, with Napoleonic suddenness struck
at Klinkner. It was the last unexpected thing KHnkner
would have dreamed of, and Daylight knew it. He knew,
further, that the California & Altamont Trust Company

BURNING DAYLIGHT 157

was an intrinsically sound institution, but that just then it
was in a precarious condition due to KJinkner's speculations
with its money. He knew, also, that in a few months the
Trust Company would be more firmly on its feet than ever,
thanks to those same speculations, and that if he were to
strike he must strike immediately. "It's just that much
money in pocket and a whole lot more," he was reported to
have said in connection with his heavy losses. "It's just so
much insurance against the future. Henceforth, men who
go in with me on deals will think twice before they try to
doublecross me, and then some."

The reason for his savageness was that he despised the
men with whom he played. He had a conviction that not
one in a hundred of them was intrinsically square; and as
for the square ones, he prophesied that, playing in a crooked
game, they were sure to lose and in the long run go broke.
His New York experience had opened his eyes. He tore
the veils of illusion from the business game, and saw its
nakedness. He generalized upon industry and society
somewhat as follows: —

Society, as organized, was a vast bunco game. There
were many hereditary inefficients — men and women who
were not weak enough to be confined in feeble-minded
homes, but who were not strong enough to be aught else
than hewers of wood and drawers of water. Then there
were the fools who took the organized bunco game seriously,
honoring and respecting it. They were easy game for the
others, who saw clearly and knew the bunco game for what
it was.

Work, legitimate work, was the source of all wealth.
That was to say, whether it was a sack of potatoes, a grand
piano, or a seven-passenger touring car, it came into being
only by the performance of work. Where the bunco came
in was in the distribution of these things after labor had
created them. He failed to see the horny-handed sons of

158 BURNESTG DAYLIGHT

toil enjoying grand pianos or riding in automobiles. How
this came about was explained by the bunco. By tens of
thousands and hundreds of thousands men sat up nights
and schemed how they could get between the workers and
the things the workers produced. These schemers were
the business men. When they got between the worker and
his product, they took a whack out of it for themselves.
The size of the whack was determined by no rule of equity,
but by their own strength and swinishness. It was always
a case of "all the traffic can bear." He saw all men in the
business game doing this.

One day, in a mellow mood (induced by a string of cock-
tails and a hearty lunch), he started a conversation with
Jones, the elevator boy. Jones was a slender, mop-headed,
man-grown, truculent flame of an individual who seemed to
go out of his way to insult his passengers. It was this that
attracted Daylight's interest, and he was not long in find-
ing out what was the matter with Jones. He was a prole-
tarian, according to his own aggressive classification, and
he had wanted to write for a living. Failing to win with
the magazines, and compelled to find himself in food and
shelter, he had gone to the Httle valley of Petacha, not a
hundred miles from Los Angeles. Here, toiling in the day-
time, he planned to write and study at night. But the
railroad charged all the traffic would bear. Petacha was a
desert valley, and produced only three things: cattle, fire-
wood, and charcoal. For freight to Los Angeles on a car-
load of cattle the railroad charged eight dollars. This,
Jones explained, was due to the fact that the cattle had legs
and could be driven to Los Angeles at a cost equivalent to
the charge per car load. But firewood had no legs, and the
railroad charged just precisely twenty-four dollars a car
load.

This was a fine adjustment, for by working hammer-and-
tongs through a twelve-hour day, after freight had been

BURNING DAYLIGHT 159

deducted from the selling price of the wood in Los Angeles,
the wood-chopper received one dollar and sixty cents. Jones
had thought to get ahead of the game by turning his wood
into charcoal. His estimates were satisfactory. But the
railroad also made estimates. It issued a rate of forty-two
dollars a car on charcoal. At the end of three months, Jones
went over his figures, and found that he was still making
one dollar and sixty cents a day.

"So I quit," Jones concluded. "I went hoboing for a
year, and I got back at the railroads. Leaving out the little
things, I came across the Sierras in the summer and touched
a match to the snow-sheds. They only had a little thirty-
thousand-dollar fire. I guess that squared up all balances
due on Petacha."

"Son, ain't you afraid to be turning loose such informa-
tion?" Daylight gravely demanded.

"Not on your life," quoth Jones. "They can't prove it.
You could say I said so, and I could say I didn't say so,
and a hell of a lot that evidence would amount to with a
jury."

Dayhght went into his office and meditated awhile.
That was it: All the traffic would bear. From top to bottom,
that was the rule of the game; and what kept the game
going was the fact that a sucker was born every minute.
If a Jones were born every minute, the game wouldn't last
very long. Lucky for the players that the workers weren't
Joneses.

But there were other and larger phases of the game.
Little business men, shopkeepers, and such ilk took what
whack they could out of the product of the worker; but,
after all, it was the large business men who formed the
workers through the little business men. When all was
said and done, the latter, like Jones in Petacha Valley, got
no more than wages out of their whack. In truth, they
were hired men for the large business men. Still again,

l60 BURNING DAYLIGHT

higher up, were the big fellows. They used vast and
complicated paraphernalia for the purpose, on a large scale,
of getting between hundreds of thousands of workers and
their products. These men were not so much mere robbers
as gamblers. And, not content with their direct winnings,
being essentially gamblers, they raided one another. They
called this feature of the game high finance. They were
all engaged primarily in robbing the worker, but every
little while they formed combinations and robbed one an-
other of the accumulated loot. This explained the fifty-
thousand-dollar raid on him by Holdsworthy and the
ten-milhon-dollar raid on him by Dowsett, Letton, and
Guggenhammer. And when he raided Panama Mail he
had done exactly the same thing. Well, he concluded, it
was finer sport robbing the robbers than robbing the poor
stupid workers.

Thus, all unread in philosophy, Daylight preempted for
himself the position and vocation of a twentieth-century
superman. He found, with rare and mythical exceptions,
that there was no noblesse oblige among the business and
financial supermen. As a clever traveller had announced in
an after-dinner speech at the Alta-Pacific, "There was
honor amongst thieves, and this was what distinguished
thieves from honest men." That was it. It hit the nail
on the head. These modern supermen were a lot of sordid
banditti who had the successful effrontery to preach a code
of right and wrong to their victims which they themselves
did not practise. With them, a man's word was good just
as long as he was compelled to keep it. Thou shall not steal
was only applicable to the honest worker. They, the super-
men, were above such commandments. They certainly stole
and were honored by their fellows according to the magni-
tude of their stealings.

The more Daylight played the game, the clearer the sit-
uation grew. Despite the fact that every robber was keen

BURNING DAYLIGHT l6l

to rob every other robber, the band was well organized. It
practically controlled the political machinery of society,
from the ward politician up to the Senate of the United
States. It passed laws that gave it privilege to rob. It
enforced these laws by means of the police, the marshals,
the militia and regular army, and the courts. And it was a
snap. A superman's chiefest danger was his fellow-super-
man. The great stupid mass of the people did not count.
They were constituted of such inferior clay that the veriest
chicanery fooled them. The superman manipulated the
strings, and when robbery of the workers became too slow
or monotonous, they turned loose and robbed one another.

Daylight was philosophical, but not a philosopher. He
had never read the books. He was a hard-headed, practical
man, and farthest from him was any intention of ever read-
ing the books. He had lived life in the simple, where books
were not 'necessary for an understanding of life, and now
life in the complex appeared just as simple. He saw
through its frauds and fictions, and found it as elemental as
on the Yukon. Men were made of the same stuff. They had
the same passions and desires. Finance was poker on a
larger scale. The men who played were the men who had
stakes. The workers were the fellows toiling for grub-
stakes. He saw the game played out according to the
everlasting rules, and he played a hand himself. The gi-
gantic futility of humanity organized and befuddled by the
bandits did not shock him. It was the natural order. Prac-
tically all human endeavors were futile. He had seen so
much of it. His partners had starved and died on the Stew-
art. Hundreds of old-timers had failed to locate on Bon-
anza and Eldorado, while Swedes and chechaquos had come
in on the moose-pasture and blindly staked millions. It was
life, and life was a savage proposition at best. Men in
civilization robbed because they were so made. They
robbed just as cats scratched, famine pinched, and frost bit.

1 62 BURNING DAYLIGHT

So it was that Daylight became a successful financier.
He did not go in for swindling the workers. Not only did
he not have the heart for it, but it did not strike him as a
sporting proposition. The workers were so easy, so stupid.
It was more like slaughtering fat, hand-reared pheasants
on the English preserves he had heard about. The sport,
to him, was in waylaying the successful robbers and taking
their spoils from them. There was fun and excitement in
that, and sometimes they put up the very devil of a fight.
Like Robin Hood of old, Daylight proceeded to rob the rich,
and, in a small way, to distribute to the needy. But he
was charitable after his own fashion. The great mass of
human misery meant nothing to him. That was part of the
everlasting order. He had no patience with the organized
charities and the professional charity mongers. Nor, on
the other hand, was what he gave a conscience dole. He
owed no man, and restitution was unthinkable. What
he gave was a largess, a free, spontaneous gift; and it was
for those about him. He never contributed to an earth-
quake fund in Japan nor to an open-air fund in New York
City. Instead, he financed Jones, the elevator boy, for a
year that he might write a book. When he learned that
the wife of his waiter at the St. Francis was suffering from
tuberculosis, he sent her to Arizona, and later, when her
case was declared hopeless, he sent the husband, too, to be
with her to the end. Likewise, he bought a string of horse-
hair bridles from a convict in a Western penitentiary, who
spread the good news until it seemed to Daylight that half
the convicts in that institution were making bridles for him.
He bought them all, paying from twenty to fifty dollars
each for them. They were beautiful and honest things,
and he decorated all the available wall-space of his bedroom
with them.

The grim Yukon life had failed to make Daylight hard.
It required civilization to produce this result. In the fierce,

BURNING DAYLIGHT 1 63

savage game he now played, his habitual geniality imper-
ceptibly slipped away from him, as did his lazy Western
drawl. As his speech became sharp and nervous, so did
his mental processes. In the swift rush of the game he
found less and less time to spend on being merely good-
natured. The change marked his face itself. The lines
grew sterner. Less often appeared the playful curl of his
lips, the smile in the wrinkling corners of his eyes. The
eyes themselves, black and flashing, like an Indian's, be-
trayed glints of cruelty and brutal consciousness of power.
His tremendous vitality remained, and radiated from all his
being, but it was vitality under the new aspect of the man-
trampling man-conqueror. His battles with elemental na-
ture had been, in a way, impersonal; his present battles
were wholly with the males of his species, and the hardships
of the trail, the river, and the frost marred him far less than
the bitter keenness of the struggle with his fellows.

He still had recrudescences of geniality, but they were
largely periodical and forced, and they were usually due to
the cocktails he took prior to meal-time. In the North, he
had drunk deeply and at irregular intervals; but now his
drinking became systematic and disciplined. It was an
unconscious development, but it was based upon physical
and mental condition. The cocktails served as an inhibi-
tion. Without reasoning or thinking about it, the strain of
the office, which was essentially due to the daring and
audacity of his ventures, required check or cessation; and
he found, through the weeks and months, that the cocktails
supplied this very thing. They constituted a stone wall.
He never drank during the morning, nor in office hours;
but the instant he left the office he proceeded to rear this
wall of alcoholic inhibition athwart his consciousness. The
office became immediately a closed affair. It ceased to
exist. In the afternoon, after lunch, it lived again for one
or two hours, when, leaving it, he rebuilt the wall of inhi-

1 64 BURNING DAYLIGHT

bition. Of course, there were exceptions to this; and, such
was the rigor of his discipline, that if he had a dinner or a
conference before him in which, in a business way, he en-
countered enemies or allies and planned or prosecuted cam-
paigns, he abstained from drinking. But the instant the
business was settled, his everlasting call went out for a
Martini, and for a double-Martini at that, served in a long
glass so as not to excite comment.

Tieat niij kind 7
and rovuin mo Ij

GERSHMAN

CHAPTER VI

Into Daylight's life came Dede Mason. She came rather
imperceptibly. He had accepted her impersonally along
with the office furnishing, the office boy, Morrison, the
chief, confidential, and only clerk, and all the rest of the
accessories of a superman's gambling place of business.
Had he been asked any time during the first months she
was in his employ, he would have been unable to tell the
color of her eyes. From the fact that she was a demi-
blonde, there resided dimly in his subconsciousness a con-
ception that she was a brunette. Likewise he had an idea
that she was not thin, while there was an absence in his mind
of any idea that she was fat. As to how she dressed, he had
no ideas at all. He had no trained eye in such matters, nor
was he interested. He took it for granted, in the lack of
any impression to the contrary, that she was dressed some-
how. He knew her as "Miss Mason," and that was all,
though he was aware that as a stenographer she seemed quick
and accurate. This impression, however, was quite vague,
for he had had no experience with other stenographers, and
naturally believed that they were all quick and accurate.

One morning, signing up letters, he came upon an /
shall. Glancing quickly over the page for similar construc-
tions, he found a number of / wills. The / shall was alone.
It stood out conspicuously. He pressed the call-bell twice,
and a moment later Dede Mason entered.

"Did I say that, Miss Mason?" he asked, extending the
letter to her and pointing out the criminal phrase.

A shade of annoyance crossed her face. She stood con-
victed.

165

1 66 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"My mistake," she said. "I am sorry. But it's not a
mistake, you know," she added quickly.

"How do you make that out?" challenged Daylight.
"It sure don't sound right, in my way of thinking."

She had reached the door by this time, and now turned,
the offending letter in her hand.

"It's right just the same."

"But that would make all those / "wills wrong, then," he
argued.

"It does," was her audacious answer. "Shall I change
them?"

"/ shall be over to look that affair up on Monday." Day-
light repeated the sentence from the letter aloud. He did it
with a grave, serious air, listening intently to the sound of
his own voice. He shook his head. "It don't sound right,
Miss Mason. It just don't sound right. Why, nobody
writes to me that way. They all say / will — educated
men, too, some of them. Ain't that so?"

"Yes," she acknowledged, and passed out to her machine
to make the correction.

It chanced that day that among the several men with
whom he sat at luncheon was a young Englishman, a min-
ing engineer. Had it happened any other time it would
have passed unnoticed, but, fresh from the tilt with his
stenographer. Daylight was struck immediately by the
Englishman's / shall. Several times, in the course of the
meal, the phrase was repeated, and Daylight was certain
there was no mistake about it.

After luncheon he cornered Mcintosh, one of the mem-
bers whom he knew to have been a college man, because
of his football reputation.

"Look here. Bunny," Daylight demanded, "which is
right, / shall be over to look that affair up on Monday, or
I will be over to look that affair up on Monday?"

The ex- football captain debated painfully for a minute.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 1 67

"Blessed if I know," he confessed. "Which way do I
say it?"

"Oh, / will, of course."

"Then the other is right, depend upon it. I always was
rotten on grammar."

On the way back to the office. Daylight dropped into a
bookstore and bought a grammar; and for a solid hour, his
feet up on the desk, he toiled through its pages.

"Knock off my head with little apples if the girl ain't
right," he communed aloud at the end of the session.
For the first time it struck him that there was something
about his stenographer. He had accepted her up to then,
as a female creature and a bit of office furnishing. But
now, having demonstrated that she knew more grammar
than did business men and college graduates, she became an
individual. She seemed to stand out in his consciousness
as conspicuously as the / shall had stood out on the typed
page, and he began to take notice.

He managed to watch her leaving that afternoon, and he
was aware for the first time that she was well-formed, and
that her manner of dress was satisfying. He knew none of
the details of women's dress, and he saw none of the details
of her neat shirt-waist and well-cut tailor suit. He saw
only the effect in a general, sketchy way. She looked right.
This was in the absence of anything wrong or out of the
way.

"She's a trim little good-looker," was his verdict, when
the outer office door closed on her.

The next morning, dictating, he concluded that he liked
the way she did her hair, though for the life of him he could
have given no description of it. The impression was pleas-
ing, that was all. She sat between him and the window,
and he noted that her hair was light brown, with hints of
golden bronze. A pale sun, shining in, touched the golden
bronze into smouldering fires that were very pleasing to

l68 BUKNING DAYLIGHT

behold. Funny, he thought, that he had never observed
this phenomenon before.

In the midst of the letter he came to the construction
which had caused the trouble the day before. He remem-
bered his wrestle with the grammar, and dictated: —

"I shall meet you halfway in this proposition — "

Miss Mason gave a quick look up at him. The action
was purely involuntary, and, in fact, had been half a startle
of surprise. The next instant her eyes had dropped again,
and she sat waiting to go on with the dictation. But in
that moment of her glance Daylight had noted that her
eyes were gray. He was later to learn that at times there
were golden lights in those same gray eyes ; but he had seen
enough, as it was, to surprise him, for he became suddenly
aware that he had always taken her for a brunette with
brown eyes, as a matter of course.

"You were right, after all," he confessed, with a sheep-
ish grin that sat incongruously on his stern, Indian-like
features.

Again he was rewarded by an upward glance and an
acknowledging smile, and this time he verified the fact that
her eyes were gray.

"But it don't sound right, just the same," he complained.

At this she laughed outright.

"I beg your pardon," she hastened to make amends,
and then spoiled it by adding, "but you are so funny."

Daylight began to feel a slight awkwardness, and the
sun would persist in setting her hair a-smouldering.

"I didn't mean to be funny," he said.

"That was why I laughed. But it is right, and perfectly
good grammar."

"All right," he sighed — "/ shall meet you halfway in
this proposition — got that?"

And the dictation went on.

He discovered that in the intervals, when she had nothing

BURNING DAYLIGHT 1 69

to do, she read books and magazines, or worked on some
sort of feminine fancy work.

Passing her desk, once, he picked up a volume of Kip-
ling's poems and glanced bepuzzled through the pages.

"You Hke reading, Miss Mason?" he said, laying the
book down.

"Oh, yes," was her answer; "very much."

Another time it was a book of Wells', The Wheels of
Chance.

"What's it all about?" Daylight asked.

"Oh, it's just a novel, a love-story."

She stopped, but he still stood waiting, and she felt it
incumbent to go on.

"It's about a little Cockney draper's assistant, who takes
a vacation on his bicycle, and falls in with a young girl very
much above him. Her mother is a popular writer and all
that. And the situation is very curious, and sad, too, and
tragic. Would you care to read it?"

"Does he get her?" Daylight demanded.

"No; that's the point of it. He wasn't — "

"And he doesn't get her, and you've read all them pages,
hundreds of them, to find that out?" Daylight muttered
in amazement.

Miss Mason was nettled as well as amused.

"But you read the mining and financial news by the
hour," she retorted.

"But I sure get something out of that. It's business,
and it's different. I get money out of it. What do you get
out of books?"

"Points of view, new ideas, life."

"Not worth a cent cash."

"But life's worth more than cash," she argued.

"Oh, well," he said, with easy masculine tolerance, "so
long as you enjoy it. That's what counts, I suppose; and
there's no accounting for taste."

170 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Despite his own superior point of view, he had an idea
that she knew a lot, and he experienced a fleeting feehng
Hke that of a barbarian face to face with the evidence of
some tremendous culture. To Daylight culture was a
worthless thing, and yet, somehow, he was vaguely troubled
by a sense that there was more in culture than he imagined.

Again, on her desk, in passing, he noticed a book with
which he was familiar. This time he did not stop, for he
had recognized the cover. It was a magazine correspond-
ent's book on the Klondike, and he knew that he and his
photograph figured in it, and he knew, also, of a certain
sensational chapter concerned with a woman's suicide, and
with one "Too much Daylight."

After that he did not talk with her again about books.
He imagined what erroneous conclusions she had drawn
from that particular chapter, and it stung him the more
in that they were undeserved. Of all unlikely things, to
have the reputation of being a lady-killer, — he. Burning
Daylight, — and to have a woman kill herself out of love
for him! He felt that he was a most unfortunate man,
and wondered by what luck that one book of all the thou-
sands of books should have fallen into his stenographer's
hands. For some days afterward he had an uncomfortable
sensation of guiltiness whenever he was in Miss Mason's
presence; and once he was positive that he caught her
looking at him with a curious, intent gaze, as if studying
what manner of man he was.

He pumped Morrison, the clerk, who had first to vent his
personal grievance against Miss Mason before he could tell
what httle he knew of her.

"She comes from Siskiyou County. She's very nice to
work with in the office, of course, but she's rather stuck on
herself — exclusive, you know."

"How do you make that out?" Daylight queried.

"Well, she thinks too much of herself to associate with

BURNING DAYLIGHT 17I

those she works with, in the office here, for instance. She
won't have anything to do with a fellow, you see. I've
asked her out repeatedly, to the theatre and the chutes and
such things. But nothing doing. Says she likes plenty of
sleep, and can't stay up late, and has to go all the way to
Berkeley — that's where she lives."

This phase of the report gave Daylight a distinct satis-
faction. She was a bit above the ordinary, and no doubt
about it. But Morrison's next words carried a hurt.

"But that's all hot air. She's running with the Univer-
sity boys, that's what she's doing. She needs lots of sleep,
and can't go to the theatre with me, but she can dance all
hours with them. I've heard it pretty straight that she
goes to all their hops and such things. Rather stylish and
high-toned for a stenographer, I'd say. And she keeps a
horse, too. She rides astride all over those hills out there.
I saw her one Sunday myself. Oh, she's a high-flyer, and
I wonder how she does it. Sixty-five a month don't go far.
Then she has a sick brother, too."

"Live with her people?" Daylight asked.

"No; hasn't got any. They were well to do, I've heard.
They must have been, or that brother of hers couldn't have
gone to the University of California. Her father had a big
cattle-ranch, but he got to fooling with mines or something,
and went broke before he died. Her mother died long
before that. Her brother must cost a lot of money. He
was a husky once, played football, was great on hunting and
being out in the mountains and such things. He got his
accident breaking horses, and then rheumatism or some-
thing got into him. One leg is shorter than the other and
withered up some. He has to walk on crutches. I saw her
out with him once — crossing the ferry. The doctors have
been experimenting on him for years, and he's in the French
Hospital now, I think."

All of which side-lights on Miss Mason went to increase

172 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Daylight's interest in her. Yet, much as he desired, he
failed to get acquainted with her. He had thoughts of
asking her to luncheon, but his was the innate chivalry of
the frontiersman, and the thoughts never came to anything.
He knew a self-respecting, square-dealing man was not
supposed to take his stenographer to luncheon. Such
things did happen, he knew, for he heard the chaffing gossip
of the club; but he did not think much of such men and
felt sorry for the girls. He had a strange notion that a man
had less rights over those he employed than over mere
acquaintances or strangers. Thus, had Miss Mason not
been his employee, he was confident that he would have had
her to luncheon or the theatre in no time. But he felt that
it was an imposition for an employer, because he bought
the time of an employee in working hours, to presume in
any way upon any of the rest of that employee's time.
To do so was to act like a bully. The situation was unfair.
It was taking advantage of the fact that the employee was
dependent on one for a livelihood. The employee might
permit the imposition through fear of angering the employer
and not through any personal inclination at all.

In his own case he felt that such an imposition would be
peculiarly obnoxious, for had she not read that cursed
Klondike correspondent's book? A pretty idea she must
have of him, a girl that was too high-toned to have any-
thing to do with a good-looking, gentlemanly fellow like
Morrison. Also, and down under all his other reasons,
Daylight was timid. The only thing he had ever been
afraid of in his life was woman, and he had been afraid all
his life. Nor was that timidity to be put easily to flight
now that he felt the first glimmering need and desire for
woman. The spectre of the apron-string still haunted him,
and helped him to find excuses for getting on no forwarder
with Dede Mason.

CHAPTER VII

Not being favored by chance in getting acquainted with
Dede Mason, Daylight's interest in her slowly waned.
This was but natural, for he was plunged deep in hazardous
operations, and the fascinations of the game and the
magnitude of it accounted for all the energy that even his
magnificent organism could generate. Such was his absorp-
tion that the pretty stenographer slowly and imperceptibly
faded from the forefront of his consciousness. Thus, the
first faint spur, in the best sense, of his need for woman
ceased to prod. So far as Dede Mason was concerned, he
possessed no more than a complacent feeling of satisfaction
in that he had a very nice stenographer.

And, completely to put the quietus on any last lingering
hopes he might have had of her, he was in the thick of his
spectacular and intensely bitter fight with the Coastwise
Steam Navigation Company, and the Hawaiian, Nicara-
guan, and Pacific-Mexican Steamship Company. He
stirred up a bigger muss than he had anticipated,
and even he was astounded at the wide ramifications
of the struggle and at the unexpected and incongruous
interests that were drawn into it. Every newspaper
in San Francisco turned upon him. It was true, one
or two of them had first intimated that they were open
to subsidization, but Daylight's judgment was that the
situation did not warrant such expenditure. Up to this time
the press had been amusingly tolerant and good-naturedly
sensational about him, but now he was to learn what virulent
scurrilousness an antagonized press was capable of. Every
episode of his life was resurrected to serve as foundations

173

174 BURNING DAYLIGHT

for malicious fabrications. Daylight was frankly amazed at
the new interpretation put upon all he had accomplished and
the deeds he had done. From an Alaskan hero he was meta-
morphosed into an Alaskan bully, liar, desperado, and all-
around "bad man." Not content with this, lies upon lies,
out of whole cloth, were manufactured about him. He
never replied, though once he went to the extent of disbur-
dening his mind to half a dozen reporters.

"Do your damnedest," he told them. "Burning Day-
light's bucked bigger things than your dirty, lying sheets.
And I don't blame you, boys . . . that is, not much. You
can't help it. You've got to live. There's a mighty lot of
women in this world that make their living in similar fash-
ion to yours, because they're not able to do anything better.
Somebody's got to do the dirty work, and it might as well
be you. You're paid for it, and you ain't got the backbone
to rustle cleaner jobs."

The sociahst press of the city jubilantly exploited this
utterance, scattering it broadcast over San Francisco in
tens of thousands of paper dodgers. And the journalists,
stung to the quick, retaliated with the only means in their
power — printer's ink abuse. The attack became bitterer
than ever. The whole affair sank to the deeper deeps of
rancor and savageness. The poor woman who had killed
herself was dragged out of her grave and paraded on thou-
sands of reams of paper as a martyr and a victim to Day-
light's ferocious brutality. Staid, statistical articles were
published, proving that he had made his start by robbing
poor miners of their claims, and that the capstone to his
fortune had been put in place by his treacherous violation
of faith with the Guggenhammers in the deal on Ophir.
And there were editorials written in which he was called
an enemy of society, possessed of the manners and culture of
a caveman, a fomenter of wasteful business troubles, the
destroyer of the city's prosperity in commerce and trade,

BURNING DAYLIGHT 175

an anarchist of dire menace; and one editorial gravely
recommended that hanging would be a lesson to him and
his ilk, and concluded with the fervent hope that some
day his big motor-car would smash up and smash him
with it.

He was like a big bear raiding a bee-hive and, regardless
of the stings, he obstinately persisted in pawing for the
honey. He gritted his teeth and struck back. Beginning
with a raid on two steamship companies, it developed into
a pitched battle with a city, a state, and a continental coast-
line. Very well; they wanted fight, and they would get
it. It was what he wanted, and he felt justified in having
come down from the Klondike, for here he was gambling
at a bigger table than ever the Yukon had supplied.
AUied with him, on a splendid salary, with princely
pickings thrown in, was a lawyer, Larry Hegan, a
young Irishman with a reputation to make, and whose
peculiar genius had been unrecognized until Daylight
picked up with him. Hegan had Celtic imagination and
daring, and to such degree that Daylight's cooler head was
necessary as a check on his wilder visions. Hegan's was
a Napoleonic legal mind, without balance, and it was just
this balance that Daylight supplied. Alone, the Irishman
was doomed to failure, but directed by Daylight, he was
on the highroad to fortune and recognition. Also, he was
possessed of no more personal or civic conscience than
Napoleon.

It was Hegan who guided Daylight through the intri-
cacies of modern politics, labor organization, and commer-
cial and corporation law. It was Hegan, prolific of resource
and suggestion, who opened Daylight's eyes to undreamed
possibilities in twentieth-century warfare; and it was
Daylight, rejecting, accepting, and elaborating, who planned
the campaigns and prosecuted them. With the Pacific
coast, from Puget Sound to Panama, buzzing and humming,

176 BURNING DAYLIGHT

and with San Francisco furiously about his ears, the two
big steamship companies had all the appearance of winning.
It looked as if Burning Daylight was being beaten slowly to
his knees. And then he struck — at the steamship com-
panies, at San Francisco, at the whole Pacific coast.

It was not much of a blow at first. A Christian Endeavor
convention being held in San Francisco, a row was started
by Express Drivers' Union No. 927 over the handling of a
small heap of baggage at the Ferry Building. A few heads
were broken, a score of arrests made, and the baggage was
delivered. No one would have guessed that behind this
petty wrangle was the fine Irish hand of Hegan, made potent
by the Klondike gold of Burning Daylight. It was an
insignificant affair at best — or so it seemed. But the
Teamsters' Union took up the quarrel, backed by the
whole Water Front Federation. Step by step, the strike
became involved. A refusal of cooks and waiters to serve
scab teamsters or teamsters' employers brought out the
cooks and waiters. The butchers and meat-cutters refused
to handle meat destined for unfair restaurants. The com-
bined Employers' Associations put up a soUd front, and
found facing them the 40,000 organized laborers of San
Francisco. The restaurant bakers and the bakery wagon
drivers struck, followed by the milkers, milk drivers, and
chicken pickers. The building trades asserted its position
in unambiguous terms, and all San Francisco was in turmoil.

But still, it was only San Francisco. Hegan's intrigues
were masterly, and Daylight's campaign steadily developed.
The powerful fighting organization known as the Pacific
Slope Seaman's Union refused to work vessels the cargoes
of which were to be handled by scab longshoremen and
freight-handlers. The union presented its ultimatum, and
then called a strike. This had been Daylight's objective
all the time. Every incoming coastwise vessel was boarded
by the union officials and its crew sent ashore. And with the

BURNING DAYLIGHT 177

seamen went the firemen, the engineers, and the sea cooks
and waiters. Daily the number of idle steamers increased.
It was impossible to get scab crews, for the men of the
Seaman's Union were fighters trained in the hard school of
the sea, and when they went out it meant blood and death
to scabs. This phase of the strike spread up and down the
entire Pacific coast, until all the ports were filled with idle
ships, and sea transportation was at a standstill. The days
and weeks dragged out, and the strike held. The Coast-
wise Steam Navigation Company, and the Hawaiian,
Nicaraguan, and Pacific-Mexican Steamship Company
were tied up completely. The expenses of combating the
strike were tremendous, and they were earning nothing,
while daily the situation went from bad to worse, until
"peace at any price" became the cry. And still there was
no peace, until Dayhght and his allies played out their
hand, raked in the winnings, and allowed a goodly portion
of a continent to resume business.

It was noted, in following years, that several leaders of
workmen built themselves houses and blocks of renting flats
and took trips to the old countries, while, more immediately,
other leaders and "dark horses" came to political prefer-
ment and the control of the municipal government and the
municipal moneys. In fact, San Francisco's boss-ridden
condition was due in greater degree to Daylight's wide-
spreading battle than even San Francisco ever dreamed.
For the part he had played, the details of which were prac-
tically all rumor and guesswork, quickly leaked out, and
in consequence he became a much-execrated and well-
hated man. Nor had Daylight himself dreamed that his
raid on the steamship companies would have grown to such
colossal proportions.

But he had got what he was after. He had played an
exciting hand and won, beating the steamship companies
down into the dust and mercilessly robbing the stockholders

iyS BURNING DAYLIGHT

by perfectly legal methods before he let go. Of course, in
addition to the large sums of money he had paid over, his
aUies had rewarded themselves by gobbling the advantages
which later enabled them to loot the city. His alliance
with a gang of cutthroats had brought about a lot of cut-
throating. But his conscience suffered no twinges. He
remembered what he had once heard an old preacher utter,
namely, that they who rose by the sword perished by the
sword. One took his chances when he played with cut-
throats, and his, Daylight's, throat was still intact. That
was it! And he had won. It was all gamble and war
between the strong men. The fools did not count. They
were always getting hurt; and that they always had been
getting hurt was the conclusion he drew from what little
he knew of history. San Francisco had wanted war, and
he had given it war. It was the game. All the big fellows
did the same, and they did much worse, too.

"Don't talk to me about morality and civic duty," he
replied to a persistent interviewer. "If you quit your job
to-morrow and went to work on another paper, you would
write just what you were told to write. It's morality and
civic duty now with you ; on the new job it would be backing
up a thieving railroad with . . . morality and civic duty,
I suppose. Your price, my son, is just about thirty per
week. That's what you sell for. But your paper would
sell for a bit more. Pay its price to-day, and it would shift
its present rotten policy to some other rotten policy; but
it would never let up on morality and civic duty.

"And all because a sucker is born every minute. So
long as the people stand for it, they'll get it good and plenty,
my son. And the shareholders and business interests might
as well shut up squawking about how much they've been
hurt. You never hear ary squeal out of them when they've
got the other fellow down and are gouging him. This is
the time they got gouged, and that's all there is to it. Talk

BURNING DAYLIGHT 1 79

about mollycoddles! Son, those same fellows would steal
crusts from starving men and pull gold fillings from the
mouths of corpses, yep, and squawk like Sam Scratch if
some blamed corpse hit back. They're all tarred with the
same brush, little and big. Look at your Sugar Trust —
with all its millions stealing water like a common thief from
New York City, and short-weighing the government on its
foney scales. Morality and civic duty! Son, forget it."

CHAPTER VIII

Daylight's coming to civilization had not improved
him. True, he wore better clothes, had learned slightly
better manners, and spoke better English. As a gambler
and a man-trampler he had developed remarkable efficiency.
Also, he had become used to a higher standard of living, and
he had whetted his wits to razor sharpness in the fierce,
complicated struggle of fighting males. But he had hard-
ened, and at the expense of his old-time, whole-souled
geniaUty. Of the essential refinements of civilization he
knew nothing. He did not know they existed. He had
become cynical, bitter, and brutal. Power had its effect
on him that it had on all men. Suspicious of the big ex-
ploiters, despising the fools of the exploited herd, he had
faith only in himself. This led to an undue and erroneous
exaltation of his ego, while kindly consideration of others
— nay, even simple respect — was destroyed, until naught
was left for him but to worship at the shrine of self.

Physically, he was not the man of iron muscles who had
come down out of the Arctic. He did not exercise suffi-
ciently, ate more than was good for him, and drank alto-
gether too much. His muscles were getting flabby, and
his tailor called attention to his increasing waistband. In
fact. Daylight was developing a definite paunch. This
physical deterioration was manifest likewise in his face.
The lean Indian visage was suffering a city change. The
slight hollows in the cheeks under the high cheek-bones had
filled out. The beginning of puff-sacks under the eyes
was faintly visible. The girth of the neck had increased,
and the first crease and fold of a double chin were becoming

1 80

BURNING DAYLIGHT l8l

plainly discernible. The old effect of asceticism, bred of
terrific hardships and toil, had vanished; the features had
become broader and heavier, betraying all the stigmata of
the life he lived, advertising the man's self-indulgence,
harshness, and brutality.

Even his human affiliations were descending. Playing
a lone hand, contemptuous of most of the men with whom
he played, lacking in sympathy or understanding of them,
and certainly independent of them, he found little in com-
mon with those to be encountered, say at the Alta-Pacific.
In point of fact, when the battle with the steamship com-
panies was at its height and his raid was inflicting incalcu-
lable damage on all business interests, he had been asked to
resign from the Alta-Pacific. The idea had been rather to
his liking, and he had found new quarters in clubs like the
Riverside, organized and practically maintained by the city
bosses. He found that he really liked such men better.
They were more primitive and simple, and they did not
put on airs. They were honest buccaneers, frankly in the
game for what they could get out of it, on the surface more
raw and savage, but at least not glossed over with oily or
graceful hypocrisy. The Alta-Pacific had suggested that
his resignation be kept a private matter, and then had
privily informed the newspapers. The latter had made
great capital out of the forced resignation, but Daylight had
grinned and silently gone his way, though registering a black
mark against more than one club member who was des-
tined to feel, in the days to come, the crushing weight of
the Klondiker's financial paw.

The storm-centre of a combined newspaper attack lasting
for months. Daylight's character had been torn to shreds.
There was no fact in his history that had not been distorted
into a criminality or a vice. This public making of him
over into an iniquitous monster had pretty well crushed
any Hngering hope he had of getting acquainted with Dede

1 82 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Mason. He felt that there was no chance for her ever to
look kindly on a man of his caliber, and, beyond increasing
her salary to seventy-five dollars a month, he proceeded
gradually to forget about her. The increase was made
known to her through Morrison, and later she thanked
Daylight, and that was the end of it.

One week-end, feeling heavy and depressed and tired of
the city and its ways, he obeyed the impulse of a whim that
was later to play an important part in his life. The desire
to get out of the city for a whiff of country air and for a
change of scene was the cause. Yet, to himself, he made
the excuse of going to Glen Ellen for the purpose of in-
specting the brickyard with which Holdsworthy had gold-
bricked him.

He spent the night in the little country hotel, and on
Sunday morning, astride a saddle-horse rented from the
Glen Ellen butcher, rode out of the village. The brick-
yard was close at hand on the flat beside the Sonoma Creek.
The kilns were visible among the trees, when he glanced
to the left and caught sight of a cluster of wooded knolls
half a mile away, perched on the rolling slopes of Sonoma
Mountain. The mountain, itself wooded, towered behind.
The trees on the knolls seemed to beckon to him. The dry,
early-summer air, shot through with sunshine, was wine to
him. Unconsciously he drank it in in deep breaths. The
prospect of the brickyard was uninviting. He was jaded
with all things business, and the wooded knolls were calHng
to him. A horse was between his legs — a good horse, he
decided; one that sent him back to the cayuses he had
ridden during his eastern Oregon boyhood. He had been
somewhat of a rider in those early days, and the champ of
bit and creak of saddle-leather sounded good to him now.

Resolving to have his fun first, and to look over the brick-
yard afterward, he rode on up the hill, prospecting for a
way across country to get to the knolls. He left the coun-

BURNING DAYLIGHT 1 83

try road at the first gate he came to and cantered through
a hayfield. The grain was waist-liigh on either side the
wagon road, and he sniffed the warm aroma of it with
delighted nostrils. Larks flew up before him, and from
everywhere came mellow notes. From the appearance of
the road it was patent that it had been used for hauling clay
to the now idle brickyard. Salving his conscience with the
idea that this was part of the inspection, he rode on to the
clay-pit — a huge scar in a hillside. But he did not linger
long, swinging off again to the left and leaving the road.
Not a farm-house was in sight, and the change from the
city crowding was essentially satisfying. He rode now
through open woods, across little flower-scattered glades,
till he came upon a spring. Flat on the ground, he drank
deeply of the clear water, and, looking about him, felt
with a shock the beauty of the world. It came to him like
a discovery; he had never realized it before, he concluded,
and also, he had forgotten much. One could not sit in at
high finance and keep track of such things. As he drank
in the air, the scene, and the distant song of larks, he felt
like a poker-player rising from a night-long table and com-
ing forth from the pent atmosphere to taste the freshness of
the morn.

At the base of the knolls he encountered a tumble-down
stake-and-rider fence. From the look of it he judged it
must be forty years old at least — the work of some first
pioneer who had taken up the land when the days of gold
had ended. The woods were very thick here, yet fairly
clear of underbrush, so that, while the blue sky was screened
by the arched branches, he was able to ride beneath. He
now found himself in a nook of several acres, where the oak
and manzanita and madrono gave way to clusters of stately
redwoods. Against the foot of a steep-sloped knoll he came
upon a magnificent group of redwoods that seemed to have
gathered about a tiny gurgling spring.

184 BURNING DAYLIGHT

He halted his horse, for beside the spring uprose a wild
California lily. It was a wonderful flower, growing there
in the cathedral nave of lofty trees. At least eight feet in
height, its stem rose straight and slender, green and bare,
for two-thirds its length, and then burst into a shower
of snow-white waxen bells. There were hundreds of these
blossoms, all from the one stem, delicately poised and
ethereally frail. Daylight had never seen anything like it.
Slowly his gaze wandered from it to all that was about him.
He took off his hat, with almost a vague religious feeling.
This was different. No room for contempt and evil here.
This was clean and fresh and beautiful — something he
could respect. It was like a church. The atmosphere was
one of holy calm. Here man felt the prompting of nobler
things. Much of this and more was in Daylight's heart as
he looked about him. But it was not a concept of his mind.
He merely felt it without thinking about it at all.

On the steep incline above the spring grew tiny maiden-
hair ferns, while higher up were larger ferns and brakes.
Great, moss-covered trunks of fallen trees lay here and
there, slowly sinking back and merging into the level of
the forest mould. Beyond, in a slightly clearer space, wild
grape and honeysuckle swung in green riot from gnarled
old oak trees. A gray Douglas squirrel crept out on a
branch and watched him. From somewhere came the dis-
tant knocking of a woodpecker. This sound did not disturb
the hush and awe of the place. Quiet woods' noises be-
longed there and made the solitude complete. The tiny
bubbling ripple of the spring and the gray flash of tree-
squirrel were as yardsticks with which to measure the
silence and motionless repose.

"Might be a million miles from anywhere," Daylight
whispered to himself.

But ever his gaze returned to the wonderful lily beside
the bubbling spring.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 1 85

He tethered the horse and wandered on foot among the
knolls. Their tops were crowned with century-old spruce
trees, and their sides clothed with oaks and madronos and
native holly. But to the perfect redwoods belonged the
small but deep caiion that threaded its way among the
knolls. Here he found no passage out for his horse, and he
returned to the lily beside the spring. On foot, tripping,
stumbling, leading the animal, he forced his way up tlie
hillside. And ever the ferns carpeted the way of his feet,
ever the forest climbed with him and arched overhead,
and ever the clean joy and sweetness stole in upon his
senses.

On the crest he came through an amazing thicket of
velvet-trunked young madroiios, and emerged on an open
hillside that led down into a tiny valley. The sunshine was
at first dazzling in its brightness, and he paused and rested,
for he was panting from the exertion. Not of old had he
known shortness of breath such as this, and muscles that
so easily tired at a stiff climb. A tiny stream ran down
the tiny valley through a tiny meadow that was carpeted
knee-high with grass and blue and white nemophila. The
hillside was covered with Mariposa lihes and wild hyacinth,
down through which his horse dropped slowly, with circum-
spect feet and reluctant gait.

Crossing the stream. Daylight followed a faint cattle-
trail over a low, rocky hill and through a wine-wooded forest
of manzanita, and emerged upon another tiny valley, down
which filtered another spring-fed, meadow-bordered stream-
let. A jack-rabbit bounded from a bush under his horse's
nose, leaped the stream, and vanished up the opposite hill-
side of scrub-oak. Daylight watched it admiringly as he
rode on to the head of the meadow. Here he startled up
a many-pronged buck, that seemed to soar across the
meadow, and to soar over the stake-and-rider fence, and,
still soaring, disappeared in a friendly copse beyond.

1 86 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Daylight's delight was unbounded. It seemed to him
that he had never been so happy. His old woods' training
was aroused, and he was keenly interested in everything —
in the moss on the trees and branches; in the bunches of
mistletoe hanging in the oaks; in the nest of a wood-rat;
in the water-cress growing in the sheltered eddies of the
little stream; in the butterflies drifting through the rifted
sunshine and shadow; in the blue jays that flashed in
splashes of gorgeous color across the forest aisles; in the
tiny birds, like wrens, that hopped among the bushes and
imitated certain minor quail-calls; and in the crimson-
crested woodpecker that ceased its knocking and cocked its
head on one side to survey him. Crossing the stream, he
struck faint vestiges of a wood-road, used, evidently, a
generation back, when the meadow had been cleared of its
oaks. He found a hawk's nest on the lightning-shattered
tipmost top of a six-foot redwood. And to complete it
all, his horse stumbled upon several large broods of half-
grown quail, and the air was filled with the thrum of their
flight. He halted and watched the young ones "petrify-
ing" and disappearing on the ground before his eyes, and
listening to the anxious calls of the old ones hidden in the
thickets.

"It sure beats country places and bungalows at Menlo
Park," he communed aloud; "and if ever I get the hanker-
ing for country life, it's me for this every time."

The old wood-road led him to a clearing, where a dozen
acres of grapes grew on wine-red soil. A cow-path, more
trees and thickets, and he dropped down a hillside to the
southeast exposure. Here, poised above a big forested
caiion, and looking out upon Sonoma Valley, was a small
farm-house. With its barn and outhouses it snuggled into
a nook in the hillside, which protected it from west and
north. It was the erosion from this hillside, he judged,
that had formed the little level stretch of vegetable garden.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 187

The soil was fat and black, and there was water in plenty,
for he saw several faucets running wide open.

Forgotten was the brickyard. Nobody was at home,
but Daylight dismounted and ranged the vegetable garden,
eating strawberries and green peas, inspecting the old
adobe barn and the rusty plough and harrow, and rolling
and smoking cigarettes while he watched the antics of sev-
eral broods of young chickens and the mother hens. A foot-
trail that led down the wall of the big caiion invited him,
and he proceeded to follow it. A water-pipe, usually above
ground, paralleled the trail, which he concluded led up-
stream to the bed of the creek. The wall of the canon
was several hundred feet from top to bottom, and so mag-
nificent were the untouched trees that the place was plunged
in perpetual shade. He measured with his eye spruces
five and six feet in diameter and redwoods even larger.
One such he passed, a twister that was at least ten or
eleven feet through. The trail led straight to a small dam
where was the intake for the pipe that watered the vege-
table garden. Here, beside the stream, were alders and
laurel trees, and he walked through fern-brakes higher
than his head. Velvety moss was everywhere, out of which
grew maiden-hair and gold-back ferns.

Save for the dam, it was a virgin wild. No axe had in-
vaded, and the trees died only of old age and stress of winter
storm. The huge trunks of those that had fallen lay moss-
covered, slowly resolving back into the soil from which they
sprang. Some had lain so long that they were quite gone,
though their faint outlines, level with the mould, could still
be seen. Others bridged the stream, and from beneath the
bulk of one monster half a dozen younger trees, overthrown
and crushed by the fall, growing out along the ground, still
lived and prospered, their roots bathed by the stream, their
upshooting branches catching the sunlight through the gap
that had been made in the forest roof.

1 88 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Back at the farm-house, Dayhght mounted and rode on
away from the ranch and into the wilder carions and
steeper steeps beyond. Nothing could satisfy his holiday
spirit now but the ascent of Sonoma Mountain. And here
on the crest, three hours afterward, he emerged, tired and
sweaty, garments torn and face and hands scratched, but
with sparkling eyes and an unwonted zestfulness of expres-
sion. He felt the illicit pleasure of a schoolboy playing
truant. The big gambling table of San Francisco seemed
very far away. But there was more than illicit pleasure in
his mood. It was as though he were going through a sort of
cleansing bath. No room here for all the sordidness, mean-
ness, and viciousness that filled the dirty pool of city ex-
istence. Without pondering in detail upon the matter at
all, his sensations were of purification and uplift. Had
he been asked to state how he felt, he would merely have
said that he was having a good time; for he was unaware in
his self-consciousness of the potent charm of nature that
was percolating through his city-rotted body and brain —
potent, in that he came of an abysmal past of wilderness
dwellers, while he was himself coated with but the thinnest
rind of crowded civihzation.

There were no houses in the summit of Sonoma Moun-
tain, and, all alone under the azure California sky, he reined
in on the southern edge of the peak. He saw open pasture
country, intersected with wooded carions, descending to
the south and west from his feet, crease on crease and roll
on roll, from lower level to lower level, to the floor of Peta-
luma Valley, flat as a billiard-table, a cardboard affair, all
patches and squares of geometrical regularity where the
fat freeholds were farmed. Beyond, to the west, rose
range on range of mountains cuddling purple mists of atmos-
phere in their valleys; and still beyond, over the last range
of all, he saw the silver sheen of the Pacific. Swinging his
horse, he surveyed the west and north, from Santa Rosa to

BURNING DAYLIGHT 189

Mount St. Helena, and on to the east, across Sonoma
Valley, to the chaparral-covered range that shut off the view
of Napa Valley. Here, part way up the eastern wall of
Sonoma Valley, in range of a line intersecting the little vil-
lage of Glen Ellen, he made out a scar upon a hillside. His
first thought was that it was the dump of a mine tunnel,
but remembering that he was not in gold-bearing country,
he dismissed the scar from his mind and continued the circle
of his survey to the southeast, where, across the waters of
San Pablo Bay, he could see, sharp and distant, the twin
peaks of Mount Diablo. To the south was Mount Tamal-
pais, and, yes, he was right, fifty miles away, where the
draughty winds of the Pacific blew in the Golden Gate,
the smoke of San Francisco made a low-lying haze against
the sky.

"I ain't seen so much country all at once in many a day,"
he thought aloud.

He was loath to depart, and it was not for an hour that
he was able to tear himself away and take the descent of
the mountain. Working out a new route just for the fun of
it, late afternoon was upon him when he arrived back at
the wooded knolls. Here, on the top of one of them, his
keen eyes caught a glimpse of a shade of green sharply
differentiated from any he had seen all day. Studying it for
a minute, he concluded that it was composed of three cy-
press trees, and he knew that nothing else than the hand of
man could have planted them there. Impelled by curiosity
purely boyish, he made up his mind to investigate. So
densely wooded was the knoll, and so steep, that he had to
dismount and go up on foot, at times even on hands and
knees struggling hard to force a way through the thicker un-
derbrush. He came out abruptly upon the cypresses. They
were enclosed in a small square of ancient fence; the pickets
he could plainly see had been hewn and sharpened by hand.
Inside were the mounds of two children's graves. Two

IQO BURNESfG DAYLIGHT

wooden headboards, likewise hand-hewn, told the story:
Little David, born 1855, ^^^^ 1859; and Little Lily, born
1853, died i860.

"The poor httle kids," Daylight muttered.

The graves showed signs of recent care. Withered
bouquets of wild flowers were on the mounds, and the let-
tering on the headboards was freshly painted. Guided by
these clews. Daylight cast about for a trail, and found one
leading down the side opposite to his ascent. Circling the
base of the knoll, he picked up with his horse and rode on
to the farm-house. Smoke was rising from the chimney,
and he was quickly in conversation with a nervous, slender
young man, who, he learned, was only a tenant on the
ranch. How large was it? A matter of one hundred and
eighty acres, though it seemed much larger. This was
because it was so irregularly shaped. Yes, it included the
clay-pit and all the knolls, and its boundary that ran along
the big caiion was over a mile long.

"You see," the young man said, "it was so rough and
broken that when they began to farm this country the
farmers bought in the good land to the edge of it. That's
why its boundaries are all gouged and jagged."

"Oh, yes, he and his wife managed to scratch a living
without working too hard. They didn't have to pay much
rent. Hillard, the owner, depended on the income from
the clay-pit. Hillard was well off, and had big ranches
and vineyards down on the flat of the valley. The brick-
yard paid ten cents a cubic yard for the clay. As for the
rest of the ranch, the land was good in patches, where it
was cleared, like the vegetable garden and the vineyard,
but the rest of it was too much up-and-down.

"You're not a farmer," Daylight said.

The young man laughed and shook his head.

"No; I'm a telegraph operator. But the wife and I
decided to take a two years' vacation, and . . . here we

BURNING DAYLIGHT I9I

are. But the time's about up. I'm going back into the
office this fall after I get the grapes off."

Yes, there were about eleven acres in the vineyard —
wine grapes. The price was usually good. He grew most
of what they ate. If he owned the place, he'd clear a patch
of land on the side-hill above the vineyard and plant a small
home orchard. The soil was good. There was plenty of
pasturage all over the ranch, and there were several cleared
patches, amounting to about fifteen acres in all, where he
grew as fine mountain hay as could be found. It sold for
three to five dollars more a ton than the rank-stalked valley
hay.

As Dayhght listened, there came to him a sudden envy
of this young fellow living right in the midst of all this
which Daylight had travelled through the last few hours.

"What in thunder are you going back to the telegraph
office for?" he demanded.

The young man smiled with a certain wistfulness.

"Because we can't get ahead here . . ." (he hesitated an
instant), "and because there are added expenses coming.
The rent, small as it is, counts; and besides, I'm not strong
enough to effectually farm the place. If I owned it, or if
I were a real husky like you, I'd ask nothing better. Nor
would the wife." Again the wistful smile hovered on his
face. "You see, we're country born, and after bucking with
cities for a few years, we kind of feel we like the country
best. We've planned to get ahead, though, and then some
day we'll buy a patch of land and stay with it."

The graves of the children? Yes, he had relettered them
and hoed the weeds out. It had become the custom. Who-
ever hved on the ranch did that. For years, the story ran,
the father and mother had returned each summer to the
graves. But there had come a time when they came no
more, and then old Hillard started the custom. The scar
across the valley? An old mine. It had never paid.

192 BURNING DAYLIGHT

The men had worked on it, off and on, for years, for the
indications had been good. But that was years and years
ago. No paying mine had ever been struck in the valley,
though there had been no end of prospect-holes put down,
and there had been a sort of rush there thirty years back.

A frail-looking young woman came to the door to call the
young man to supper. Daylight's first thought was that
city living had not agreed with her. And then he noted
the slight tan and healthy glow that seemed added to her
face, and he decided that the country was the place for her.
Declining an invitation to supper, he rode on for Glen Ellen,
sitting slack-kneed in the saddle and softly humming for-
gotten songs. He dropped down the rough, winding road,
through oak-covered pasture, with here and there thickets
of manzanita and vistas of open glades. He listened greed-
ily to the quail calling, and laughed outright, once, in sheer
joy, at a tiny chipmunk that fled scolding up a bank, slip-
ping on the crumbly surface and falling down, then dashing
across the road under his horse's nose and, still scolding,
scrambling up a protecting oak.

DayHght could not persuade himself to keep to the
travelled roads that day, and another cut across country to
Glen Ellen brought him upon a caiion that so blocked his
way that he was glad to follow a friendly cow-path. This
led him to a small frame cabin. The doors and windows
were open, and a cat was nursing a litter of kittens in the
doorway, but no one seemed at home. He descended the
trail that evidently crossed the caiion. Part way down, he
met an old man coming up through the sunset. In his hand
he carried a pail of foamy milk. He wore no hat, and in
his face, framed with snow-white hair and beard, was the
ruddy glow and content of the passing summer day. Day-
light thought that he had never seen so contented-looking
a being.

"How old are you, daddy?" he queried.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 193

"Eighty-four," was the reply. "Yes, sirree, eighty-four,
and spryer than most."

"You must a' taken good care of yourself," Daylight
suggested.

"I don't know about that. I ain't loafed none. I walked
across the Plains with an ox-team and fit Injuns in '51, and
I was a family man then with seven youngsters. I reckon
I was as old then as you are now, or pretty nigh on to it."

"Don't you find it lonely here?"

The old man shifted the pail of milk and reflected.

"That all depends," he said oracularly. "I ain't never
been lonely except when the old wife died. Some fellers
are lonely in a crowd, and I'm one of them. That's the
only time I'm lonely, is when I go to 'Frisco. But I don't
go no more, thank you 'most to death. This is good enough
for me. I've ben right here in this valley since '54 — one
of the first settlers after the Spaniards."

Daylight started his horse, saying: —

"Well, good night, daddy. Stick with it. You got all
the young bloods skinned, and I guess you've sure buried
a mighty sight of them."

The old man chuckled, and Daylight rode on, singularly
at peace with himself and all the world. It seemed that
the old contentment of trail and camp he had known on the
Yukon had come back to him. He could not shake from
his eyes the picture of the old pioneer coming up the trail
through the sunset light. He was certainly going some for
eighty-four. The thought of following his example entered
Daylight's mind, but the big game of San Francisco vetoed
the idea.

"Well, anyway," he decided, "when I get old and quit
the game, I'll settle down in a place something like this,
and the city can go to hell."

CHAPTER IX

Instead of returning to the city on Monday, Daylight
rented the butcher's horse for another day and crossed the
bed of the valley to its eastern hills to look at the mine. It
was dryer and rockier here than where he had been the day
before, and the ascending slopes supported mainly chapar-
ral — scrubby and dense and impossible to penetrate on
horseback. But in the cafions water was plentiful and also
a luxuriant forest growth. The mine was an abandoned
affair, but he enjoyed the half-hour's scramble around. He
had had experience in quartz-mining before he went to
Alaska, and he enjoyed the recrudescence of his old wisdom
in such matters. The story was simple to him: good pros-
pects that warranted the starting of the tunnel into the side-
hill; the three months' work and the getting short of
money; the lay-off while the men went away and got jobs;
then the return and a new stretch of work, with the "pay"
ever luring and ever receding into the mountain, until, after
years of hope, the men had given up and vanished. Most
likely they were dead by now, Daylight thought, as he
turned in the saddle and looked back across the caiion at
the ancient dump and dark mouth of the tunnel.

As on the previous day, just for the joy of it, he followed
cattle-trails at haphazard and worked his way up toward
the summits. Coming out on a wagon road that led up-
ward, he followed it for several miles, emerging in a small,
mountain-encircled valley, where half a dozen poor ranchers
farmed the wine-grapes on the steep slopes. Beyond, the
road pitched upward. Dense chaparral covered the ex-

194

BURNING DAYLIGHT 19$

posed hillsides, but in the creases of the canons huge spruce
trees grew, and wild oats and flowers.

Half an hour later, sheltering under the summits them-
selves, he came out on a clearing. Here and there, in irregu-
lar patches where the steep and the soil favored, wine-
grapes were growing. Daylight could see that it had been
a stiff struggle, and that wild nature showed fresh signs
of winning — chaparral that had invaded the clearings;
patches and parts of patches of vineyard, unpruned, grass-
grown, and abandoned; and everyivhere old stake-and-rider
fences vainly striving to remain intact. Here, at a small
farm-house surrounded by large outbuildings, the road
ended. Beyond, the chaparral blocked the way.

He came upon an old woman forking manure in the barn-
yard, and reined in by the fence.

"Hello, mother," was his greeting; "ain't you got ary
men- folk around to do that for you?"

She leaned on her pitchfork, hitched her skirt in at the
waist, and regarded him cheerfully. He saw that her toil-
worn, weather-exposed hands were like a man's, calloused^
large-knuckled, and gnarled, and that her stockingless feet
were thrust into heavy man's brogans.

"Nary a man," she answered. "And where be you from,
and all the way up here? Won't you stop and hitch and
have a glass of wine?"

Striding clumsily but efficiently, Hke a laboring-man,
she led him into the largest building, where Daylight saw a
hand-press and all the paraphernalia on a small scale for the
making of wine. It was too far and too bad a road to haul
the grapes to the valley wineries, she explained, and so they
were compelled to do it themselves. "They," he learned,
were she and her daughter, the latter a widow of forty-odd.
It had been easier before the grandson died and before
he went away to fight savages in the Philippines. He had
died out there in battle.

196 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Daylight drank a full tumbler of excellent Riesling,
talked a few minutes, and accounted for a second tumbler.
Yes, they just managed not to starve. Her husband and she
had taken up this government land in '57 and cleared it and
farmed it ever since, until he died, when she had carried it
on. It actually didn't pay for the toil, but what were they
to do? There was the wine trust, and wine was down.
That Riesling? She delivered it to the railroad down in
the valley for twenty-two cents a gallon. And it was a long
haul. It took a day for the round trip. Her daughter was
gone now with a load.

Daylight knew that in the hotels, Riesling, not quite so
good even, was charged for at from a dollar and a half to
two dollars a quart. And she got twenty-two cents a gallon.
That was the game. She was one of the stupid lowly, she
and her people before her — the ones that did the work,
drove their oxen across the Plains, cleared and broke the
virgin land, toiled all days and all hours, paid their taxes,
and sent their sons and grandsons out to fight and die for
the flag that gave them such ample protection that they
were able to sell their wine for twenty-two cents. The
same wine was served to him at the St. Francis for two dol-
lars a quart, or eight dollars a short gallon. That was it.

Between her and her hand-press on the mountain clearing
and him ordering his wine in the hotel was a difference of
seven dollars and seventy-eight cents. A clique of sleek
men in the city got between her and him to just about that
amount. And, besides them, there was a horde of others
that took their whack. They called it railroading, high
finance, banking, wholesaling, real estate, and such things,
but the point was that they got it, while she got what was
left, — twenty-two cents. Oh, well, a sucker was born
every minute, he sighed to himself, and nobody was to
blame; it was all a game, and only a few could win, but it
was damned hard on the suckers.

BURNING DAYLIGHT I97

"How old are you, mother?" he asked.

"Seventy-nine come next January."

"Worked pretty hard, I suppose?"

"Sence I was seven. I was bound out in Michigan state
until I was woman-grown. Then I married, and I reckon
the work got harder and harder."

"When are you going to take a rest?"

She looked at him, as though she chose to think his ques-
tion facetious, and did not reply.

"Do you believe in God?"

She nodded her head.

"Then you get it all back," he assured her; but in his
heart he was wondering about God, that allowed so many
suckers to be born and that did not break up the gambling
game by which they were robbed from the cradle to the
grave.

"How much of that Riesling you got?"

She ran her eyes over the casks and calculated. "Just
short of eight hundred gallons."

He wondered what he could do with all of it, and specu-
lated as to whom he could give it away.

"What would you do if you got a dollar a gallon for it?"
he asked.

"Drop dead, I suppose."

"No; speaking seriously."

"Get me some false teeth, shingle the house, and buy a
new wagon. The road's mighty hard on wagons."

"And after that?"

"Buy me a coffin."

"Well, they're yours, mother, coffin and all."

She looked her incredulity.

"No; I mean it. And there's fifty to bind the bargain.
Never mind the receipt. It's the rich ones that need watch-
ing, their memories being so infernal short, you know.
Here's my address. You've got to deliver it to the railroad.

198 BURNING DAYLIGHT

And now, show me the way out of here. I want to get up
to the top."

On through the chaparral he went, following faint cattle-
trails and working slowly upward till he came out on the
divide and gazed down into Napa Valley and back across
to Sonoma Mountain.

"A sweet land," he muttered, "an almighty sweet land."

Circling around to the right and dropping down along the
cattle-trails, he quested for another way back to Sonoma
Valley; but the cattle-trails seemed to fade out, and the
chaparral to grow thicker with a deliberate viciousness,
and even when he won through in places, the cafion and
small feeders were too precipitous for his horse, and turned
him back. But there was no irritation about it. He en-
joyed it all, for he was back at his old game of bucking
nature. Late in the afternoon he broke through, and fol-
lowed a well-defined trail down a dry caiion. Here he got
a fresh thrill. He had heard the baying of the hound some
minutes before, and suddenly, across the bare face of the hill
above him, he saw a large buck in flight. And not far behind
came the deer-hound, a magnificent animal. Daylight sat
tense in his saddle and watched until they disappeared, his
breath just a trifle shorter, as if he, too, were in the chase,
his nostrils distended, and in his bones the old hunting ache
and memories of the days before he came to live in cities.

The dry canon gave place to one with a slender ribbon
of running water. The trail ran into a wood-road, and the
wood-road emerged across a small flat upon a slightly
travelled county road. There were no farms in this imme-
diate section, and no houses. The soil was meagre, the
bed-rock either close to the surface or constituting the sur-
face itself. Manzanita and scrub-oak, however, flourished
and walled the road on either side with a jungle growth.
And out a runway through this growth a man suddenly
scuttled in a way that reminded DayHght of a rabbit.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 1 99

He was a little man, in patched overalls; bareheaded,
with a cotton shirt open at the throat and down the chest.
The sun was ruddy-brown in his face, and by it his sandy
hair was bleached on the ends to peroxide blond. He
signed to Daylight to halt, and held up a letter.

"If you're going to town, I'd be obliged if you mail
this," he said.

"I sure will." Daylight put it into his coat pocket.
"Do you live hereabouts, stranger?"

But the little man did not answer. He was gazing at
Daylight in a surprised and steadfast fashion.

"I know you," the little man announced. "You're Elam
Harnish — Burning Daylight, the papers call you. Am
I right?"

Daylight nodded.

"But what under the sun are you doing here in the
chaparral?"

Daylight grinned as he answered, "Drumming up trade
for a free rural delivery route."

"Well, I'm glad I wrote that letter this afternoon," the
little man went on, "or else I'd have missed seeing you.
I've seen your photo in the papers many a time, and I've a
good memory for faces. I recognized you at once. My
name's Ferguson."

"Do you live hereabouts?" Daylight repeated his query.

"Oh, yes. I've got a little shack back here in the bush
a hundred yards, and a pretty spring, and a few fruit trees
and berry bushes. Come in and take a look. And that
spring is a dandy. You never tasted water like it. Come
in and try it."

Walking and leading his horse, Daylight followed the
quick-stepping, eager little man through the green tunnel
and emerged abruptly upon the clearing, if clearing it might
be called, where wild nature and man's earth-scratching
were inextricably blended. It was a tiny nook in the hills,
protected by the steep walls of a caiion mouth. Here

200 BURNING DAYLIGHT

were several large oaks, evidencing a richer soil. The
erosion of ages from the hillside had slowly formed this
deposit of fat earth. Under the oaks, almost buried in
them, stood a rough, unpainted cabin, the wide veranda
of which, with chairs and hammocks, advertised an out-of-
doors bedchamber. Daylight's keen eyes took in every-
thing. The clearing was irregular, following the patches
of the best soil, and every fruit tree and berry bush, and
even each vegetable plant, had the water personally con-
ducted to it. The tiny irrigation channels were every-
where, and along some of them the water was running.

Ferguson looked eagerly into his visitor's face for signs
of approbation.

"What do you think of it, eh?"

"Hand-reared and manicured, every blessed tree," Day-
light laughed, but the joy and satisfaction that shone in his
eyes contented the little man.

"Why, d'ye know, I know every one of those trees as if
they were sons of mine. I planted them, nursed them,
fed them, and brought them up. Come on and peep at the
spring."

"It's sure a hummer," was Dayhght's verdict, after due
inspection and sampling, as they turned back for the house.

The interior was a surprise. The cooking being done in
the small, lean-to kitchen, the whole cabin formed a large
living room. A great table in the middle was comfortably
littered with books and magazines. All the available wall
space, from floor to ceihng, was occupied by filled book-
shelves. It seemed to DayUght that he had never seen so
many books assembled in one place. Skins of wildcat,
'coon, and deer lay about on the pine-board floor.

"Shot them myself, and tanned them, too," Ferguson
proudly asserted.

The crowning feature of the room was a huge fireplace of
rough stones and boulders.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 201

"Built it myself," Ferguson proclaimed, "and, by God,
she drew! Never a wisp of smoke anywhere save in the
appointed channel, and that during the big southeasters,
too."

Daylight found himself charmed and made curious by
the little man. Why was he hiding away here in the
chaparral, he and his books? He was nobody's fool, any-
body could see that. Then why? The whole affair had
a tinge of adventure, and Daylight accepted an invitation
to supper, half prepared to find his host a raw-fruit-and-nut-
eater, or some similar sort of health faddist. At table,
while eating rice and jack-rabbit curry (the latter shot by
Ferguson), they talked it over, and Daylight found the little
man had no food "views." He ate whatever he Hked, and
all he wanted, avoiding only such combinations that experi-
ence had taught him disagreed with his digestion.

Next, Daylight surmised that he might be touched with
religion; but, quest about as he would, in a conversation
covering the most divergent topics, he could find no hint of
queerness or unusualness. So it was, when between them
they had washed and wiped the dishes and put them away,
and had settled down to a comfortable smoke, that Daylight
put his question.

"Look here, Ferguson. Ever since we got together,
I've been casting about to find out what's wrong with you,
to locate a screw loose somewhere, but I'll be danged if
I've succeeded. What are you doing here, anyway? What
made you come here? What were you doing for a living
before you came here? Go ahead and elucidate yourself."

Ferguson frankly showed his pleasure at the questions.

"First of all," he began, "the doctors wound up by losing
all hope for me. Gave me a few months at best, and that,
after a course in sanatoriums and a trip to Europe and
another to Hawaii. They tried electricity, and forced
feeding, and fasting. I was a graduate of about everything

202 BURNING DAYLIGHT

in the curriculum. They kept me poor with their bills,
while I went from bad to worse. The trouble with me was
two fold: first, I was a born weakling; and next, I was liv-
ing unnaturally — too much work, and responsibility, and
strain. I was managing editor of the Times-Tribune — "

Daylight gasped mentally, for the Times-Tribune was
the biggest and most influential paper in San Francisco,
and always had been so.

" — and I wasn't strong enough for the strain. Of
course my body went back on me, and my mind, too, for
that matter. It had to be bolstered up with whiskey,
which wasn't good for it any more than was the living in
clubs and hotels good for my stomach and the rest of me.
That was what ailed me; I was living all wrong."

He shrugged his shoulders and drew at his pipe.

"When the doctors gave me up, I wound up my affairs
and gave the doctors up. That was fifteen years ago. I'd
been hunting through here when I was a boy, on vacations
from college, and when I was all down and out it seemed a
yearning came to me to go back to the country. So I quit,
quit everything, absolutely, and came to Hve in the Valley
of the Moon — that's the Indian name, you know, for
Sonoma Valley. I lived in the lean-to the first year; then
I built the cabin and ^ent for my books. I never knew what
happiness was before, nor health. Look at me now and
dare to tell me that I look forty-seven."

"I wouldn't give a day over forty," Daylight confessed.

"Yet the day I came here I looked nearer sixty, and that
was fifteen years ago."

They talked along, and Daylight looked at the world
from new angles. Here was a man, neither bitter nor cyni-
cal, who laughed at the city-dwellers and called them luna-
tics; a man who did not care for money, and in whom the
lust for power had long since died. As for the friendship of
the city-dwellers, his host spoke in no uncertain terms.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 203

"What did they do, all the chaps I knew, the chaps in the
clubs, with whom I'd been cheek by jowl for heaven knows
how long? I was not beholden to them for anything, and
when I slipped out there was not one of them to drop me a
line and say, 'How are you, old man? Anything I can do
for you?' For several weeks it was: 'What's become of
Ferguson?' After that I became a reminiscence and a
memory. Yet every last one of them knew I had nothing
but my salary and that I'd always lived a lap ahead of it."

"But what do you do now?" was Daylight's query.
"You must need cash to buy clothes and magazines?"

"A week's work or a month's work, now and again,
ploughing in the winter, or picking grapes in the fall, and
there's always odd jobs with the farmers through the sum-
mer. I don't need much, so I don't have to work much.
Most of my time I spend fooling around the place. I could
do hack work for the magazines and newspapers; but I
prefer the ploughing and the grape picking. Just look at me
and you can see why. I'm hard as rocks. And I like the
work. But I tell you a chap's got to break in to it. It's a
great thing when he's learned to pick grapes a whole long
day and come home at the end of it with that tired happy
feeling, instead of being in a state of physical collapse. That
fireplace — those big stones — I was soft, then, a little,
anaemic, alcoholic degenerate, with the spunk of a rabbit
and about one per cent as much stamina, and some of those
big stones nearly broke my back and my heart. But I per-
severed, and used my body in the way Nature intended it
should be used — not bending over a desk and swilling
whiskey . . . and, well, here I am, a better man for it, and
there's the fireplace, fine and dandy, eh?

"And now tell me about the Klondike, and how you
turned San Francisco upside down with that last raid of
yours. You're a bonny fighter, you know, and you touch
my imagination, though my cooler reason tells me that you

204 BURNING DAYLIGHT

are a lunatic like the rest. The lust for power! It's a
dreadful affliction. Why didn't you stay in your Klondike?
Or why don't you clear out and live a natural life, for in-
stance, like mine? You see, I can ask questions, too.
Now you talk and let me listen for a while."

It was not until ten o'clock that Daylight parted from
Ferguson. As he rode along through the starlight, the idea
came to him of buying the ranch on the other side of the
valley. There was no thought in his mind of ever intending
to live on it. His game was in San Francisco. But he
liked the ranch, and as soon as he got back to the office he
would open up negotiations with Hillard. Besides, the
ranch included the clay-pit, and it would give him the
whip-hand over Holdsworthy if he ever tried to cut up any
didoeg.

CHAPTER X

The time passed, and Daylight played on at the game.
But the game had entered upon a new phase. The lust for
power in the mere gambling and winning was metamor-
phosing into the lust for power in order to revenge. There
were many men in San Francisco against whom he had
registered black marks, and now and again, with one of
his lightning strokes, he erased such a mark. He asked no
quarter; he gave no quarter. Men feared and hated him,
and no one loved him, except Larry Hegan, his lawyer, who
would have laid down his life for him. But he was the
only man with whom Daylight was really intimate, though
he was on terms of friendliest camaraderie with the rough
and unprincipled following of the bosses who ruled the
Riverside Club.

On the other hand, San Francisco's attitude toward Day-
light had undergone a change. While he, with his slashing
buccaneer methods, was a distinct menace to the more
orthodox financial gamblers, he was nevertheless so grave
a menace that they were glad enough to leave him alone.
He had already taught them the excellence of letting a sleep-
ing dog lie. Many of the men, who knew that they were in
danger of his big bear-paw when it reached out for the
honey vats, even made efforts to placate him, to get on the
friendly side of him. The Alta-Pacific approached him
confidentially with an offer of reinstatement, which he
promptly declined. He was after a number of men in that
club, and, whenever opportunity offered, he reached out
for them and mangled them. Even the newspapers, with
one or two blackmailing exceptions, ceased abusing him

205

206 BURNING DAYLIGHT

and became respectful. In short, he was looked upon as
a bald-faced grizzly from the Arctic wilds to whom it was
considered expedient to give the trail. At the time he
raided the steamship companies, they had yapped at him
and worried him, the whole pack of them, only to have
him whirl around and whip them in the fiercest pitched
battle San Francisco had ever known. Not easily forgotten
was the Pacific Slope Seaman's strike and the giving over
of the municipal government to the labor bosses and
grafters. The destruction of Charles Klinkner and the
California and Altamont Trust Company had been a warn-
ing. But it was an isolated case; they had been confident
in strength in numbers — until he taught them better.

Daylight still engaged in daring speculations, as, for in-
stance, at the impending outbreak of the Japanese-Russian
War, when, in the face of the experience and power of the
shipping gamblers, he reached out and clutched practically a
monopoly of available steamer-charters. There was scarcely
a battered tramp on the Seven Seas that was not his on
time charter. As usual, his position was, "You've got to
come and see me"; which they did, and, to use another
of his phrases, they "paid through the nose" for the privi-
lege. And all his venturing and fighting had now but one
motive. Some day, as he confided to Hegan, when he'd
made a sufficient stake, he was going back to New York
and knock the spots out of Messrs. Dowsett, Letton, and
Guggenhammer. He'd show them what an all-around
general buzz-saw he was and what a mistake they'd made
ever to monkey with him. But he never lost his head, and
he knew that he was not yet strong enough to go into death-
grapples with those three early enemies. In the meantime
the black marks against them remained for a future erase-
ment day.

Dede Mason was still in the office. He had made no
more overtures, discussed no more books and no more

BURNING DAYLIGHT 20/

grammar. He had no active interest in her, and she was to
him a pleasant memory of what had never happened, a joy,
which, by his essential nature, he was barred from ever
knowing. Yet, while his interest had gone to sleep and his
energy was consumed in the endless battles he waged, he
knew every trick of the light on her hair, every quick defi-
nite mannerism of movement, every line of her figure as
expounded by her tailor-made gowns. Several times, six
months or so apart, he had increased her salary, until now
she was receiving ninety dollars a month. Beyond this
he dared not go, though he had got around it by making
the work easier. This he had accomplished after her re-
turn from a vacation, by retaining her substitute as an
assistant. Also, he had changed his office suite, so that now
the two girls had a room by themselves.

His eye had become quite critical wherever Dede Mason
was concerned. He had long since noted her pride of
carriage. It was unobtrusive, yet it was there. He de-
cided, from the way she carried it, that she deemed her body
a thing to be proud of, to be cared for as a beautiful and
valued possession. In this, and in the way she carried her
clothes, he compared her with her assistant, with the ste-
nographers he encountered in other offices, with the women
he saw on the sidewalks. "She's sure well put up," he
communed with himself; "and she sure knows how to dress
and carry it off without being stuck on herself and without
laying it on thick."

The more he saw of her, and the more he thought he knew
of her, the more unapproachable did she seem to him. But
since he had no intention of approaching her, this was any-
thing but an unsatisfactory fact. He was glad he had her in
his office, and hoped she'd stay, and that was about all.

Daylight did not improve with the passing years. The
life was not good for him. He was growing stout and soft,
and there was unwonted flabbiness in his muscles. The

208 BURNING DAYLIGHT

more he drank cocktails, the more he was compelled to
drink in order to get the desired result, the inhibitions that
eased him dovvn from the concert pitch of his operations.
And with this went wine, too, at meals, and the long drinks
after dinner of Scotch and soda at the Riverside. Then,
too, his body suffered from lack of exercise ; and, from lack
of decent human associations, his moral fibres were weak-
ening. Never a man to hide anything, some of his escapades
became public, such as speeding, and of joy-rides in his big
red motor-car down to San Jose with companions distinctly
sporty — incidents that were narrated as good fun and
comically in the newspapers.

Nor was there anything to save him. Religion had passed
him by. "A long time dead" was his epitome of that phase
of speculation. He was not interested in humanity. Ac-
cording to his rough-hewn sociology, it was all a gamble.
God was a whimsical, abstract, mad thing called Luck. As
to how one happened to be born — whether a sucker or a
robber — was a gamble to begin with; Luck dealt out the
cards, and the little babies picked up the hands allotted
them. Protest was vain. Those were their cards and they
had to play them, willy-nilly, hunchbacked or straight
backed, crippled or clean-limbed, addle-pated or clear-
headed. There was no fairness in it. The cards most picked
up put them into the sucker class; the cards of a few enabled
them to become robbers. The playing of the cards was life;
the crowd of players, society. The table was the earth;
and the earth, in lumps and chunks, from loaves of bread to
big red motor-cars, was the stake. And in the end, lucky
and unlucky, they were all a long time dead.

It was hard on the stupid lowly, for they were coppered to
lose from the start; but the more he saw of the others, the
apparent winners, the less it seemed to him that they had
anything to brag about. They, too, were a long time dead,
and their living did not amount to much. It was a wild

BURNING DAYLIGHT 209

animal fight; the strong trampled the weak, and the strong,
he had already discovered, — men like Dowsett, and Letton,
and Guggenhammer, — were not necessarily the best. He
remembered his miner comrades of the Arctic, They were
the stupid lowly, they did the hard work and were robbed of
the fruit of their toil just as was the old woman making wine
in the Sonoma hills; and yet they had finer qualities of
truth, and loyalty, and square-dealing than did the men who
robbed them. The winners seemed to be the crooked ones,
the unfaithful ones, the wicked ones. And even they had
no say in the matter. They played the cards that were
given them; and Luck, the monstrous, mad-god thing, the
owner of the whole shebang, looked on and grinned. It was
he who stacked the universal card-deck of existence.

There was no justice in the deal. The little men that
came, the little pulpy babies, were not even asked if they
wanted to try a flutter at the game. They had no choice.
Luck jerked them into life, slammed them up against the
jostling table, and told them: "Now play, damn you, play!"
And they did their best, poor little devils. The play of some
led to steam yachts and mansions; of others, to the asylum
or the pauper's ward. Some played the one same card, over
and over, and made wine all their days in the chaparral,
hoping, at the end, to pull down a set of false teeth and a
coffin. Others quit the game early, having drawn cards
that called for violent death, or famine in the Barrens, or
loathsome and lingering disease. The hands of some called
for. kingship and irresponsible and unmerited power ; other
hands called for ambition, for wealth in untold sums, for
disgrace and shame, or for women and wine.

As for himself, he had drawn a lucky hand, though he
could not see all the cards. Somebody or something might
get him yet. The mad god. Luck, might be tricking him
along to some such end. An unfortunate set of circum-
stances, and in a month's time the robber gang might be

2IO BURNING DAYLIGHT

war-dancing around his financial carcass. This very day a
street-car might run him down, or a sign fall from a building
and smash in his skull. Or there was disease, ever ram-
pant, one of Luck's grimmest whims. Who could say?
To-morrow, or some other day, a ptomaine bug, or some
other of a thousand bugs, might jump out upon him and
drag him down. There was Doctor Bascom, Lee Bascom,
who had stood beside him a week ago and talked and
laughed, a picture of magnificent youth, and strength, and
health. And in three days he was dead — pneumonia, rheu-
matism of the heart, and heaven knew what else — at the
end screaming in agony that could be heard a block away.
That had been terrible. It was a fresh, raw stroke in Day-
light's consciousness. And when would his own turn come?
Who could say? In the meantime there was nothing to do
but play the cards he could see in his hand, and they were
battle, revenge, and cocktails. And Luck sat over all and
grinned.

CHAPTER XI

One Sunday, late in the afternoon, found Daylight across
the bay in the Piedmont hills back of Oakland. As usual,
he was in a big motor-car, though not his own, the guest of
Swiftwater Bill, Luck's own darling, who had come down to
spend the clean-up of the seventh fortune wrung from the
frozen Arctic gravel. A notorious spender, his latest pile was
already on the fair road to follow the previous six. He it
was, in the first year of Dawson, who had cracked an ocean
of champagne at fifty dollars a quart; who, with the bottom
of his gold-sack in sight, had cornered the egg-market, at
twenty-four dollars per dozen, to the tune of one hundred
and ten dozen, in order to pique the lady-love who had jilted
him; and he it was, paying like a prince for speed, who had
chartered special trains and broken all records between San
Francisco and New York. And here he was once more, the
"luck-pup of hell," as Daylight called him, throwing his
latest fortune away with the same old-time facility.

It was a merry party, and they had made a merry day of
it, circling the bay from San Francisco around by San Jose
and up to Oakland, having been thrice arrested for speeding,
the third time, however, on the Haywards stretch, running
away with their captor. Fearing that a telephone message
to arrest them had been flashed ahead, they had turned into
the back-road through the hills, and now, rushing in upon
Oakland by a new route, were boisterously discussing what
disposition they should make of the constable.

"We'll come out at Blair Park in ten minutes," one of the
men announced. "Look here, Swiftwater, there's a cross-

212 BURNING DAYLIGHT

road right ahead, with lots of gates, but it'll take us bacii-
country clear into Berkeley. Then we can come back into
Oakland from the other side, sneak across on the ferry, and
send the machine back around to-night with the chauffeur."

But Swiftwater Bill failed to see why he should not go
into Oakland by way of Blair Park, and so decided.

The next moment, flying around a bend, the back-road
they were not going to take appeared. Inside the gate,
leaning out from her saddle and just closing it, was a young
woman on a chestnut sorrel. With his first glimpse, Day
light felt there was something strangely familiar about her.
The next moment, straightening up in the saddle with a
movement he could not fail to identify, she put the horse
into a gallop, riding away with her back toward them. It
was Dede Mason — he remembered what Morrison had told
him about her keeping a riding horse, and he was glad she
had not seen him in this riotous company. Swiftwater Bill
stood up, chnging with one hand to the back of the front
seat and waving the other to attract her attention. His lips
were pursed for the piercing whistle for which he was
famous and which Daylight knew of old, when Daylight,
with a hook of his leg and a yank on the shoulder, slammed
the startled Bill down into his seat.

"You m-m-must know the lady," Swiftwater Bill splut-
tered.

''I sure do," Daylight answered, "so shut up."

"Well, I congratulate your good taste. Daylight. She's
a peach, and she rides like one, too."

Intervening trees at that moment shut her from view, and
Swiftwater Bill plunged into the problem of disposing of
their constable, while Daylight, leaning back with closed
eyes, was still seeing Dede JNIason gallop off down the coun-
try road. Swiftwater Bill was right. She certainly could
ride. And, sitting astride, her seat was perfect. Good for
Dede! That was an added point, her having the courage

BURNING DAYLIGHT 21$

to ride in the only natural and logical manner. Her head
was screwed on right, that was one thing sure.

On Monday morning, coming in for dictation, he looked
at her with new interest, though he gave no sign of it ; and
the stereotyped business passed off in the stereotyped way.
But the following Sunday found him on a horse himself,
across the bay and riding through the Piedmont hills. He
made a long day of it, but no glimpse did he catch of Dede
Mason, though he even took the back-road of many gates
and rode on into Berkeley. Here, along the lines of multi-
tudinous houses, up one street and down another, he won-
dered which of them might be occupied by her. Morrison
had said long ago that she lived in Berkeley, and she had
been headed that way in the late afternoon of the previous
Sunday — evidently returning home.

It had been a fruitless day, so far as she was concerned;
and yet not entirely fruitless, for he had enjoyed the open air
and the horse under him to such purpose that, on Monday,
his instructions were out to the dealers to look for the best
chestnut sorrel that money could buy. At odd times during
the week he examined numbers of chestnut sorrels, tried
several, and was unsatisfied. It was not till Saturday that
he came upon Bob. Daylight knew him for what he wanted
the moment he laid eyes on him. A large horse for a riding
animal, he was none too large for a big man like Daylight.
In splendid condition, Bob's coat in the sunlight was a flame
of fire, his arched neck a jewelled conflagration.

"He's a sure winner," was Daylight's comment; but the
dealer was not so sanguine. He was selling the horse on
commission, and its owner had insisted on Bob's true char-
acter being given. The dealer gave it.

"Not what you'd call a real vicious horse, but a dangerous
one. Full of vinegar and all-round cussedness, but with-
out malice. Just as soon kill you as not, but in a playful
sort of way, you understand, without meaning to at all.

214 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Personally, I wouldn't think of riding him. But he's a
stayer. Look at them lungs. And look at them legs. Not
a blemish. He's never been hurt or worked. Nobody ever
succeeded in taking it out of him. Mountain horse, too,
trail-broke and all that, being raised in rough country.
Sure-footed as a goat, so long as he don't get it into his
head to cut up. Don't shy. Ain't really afraid, but makes
beheve. Don't buck, but rears. Got to ride him with a mar-
tingale. Has a bad trick of whirling around without cause.
It's his idea of a joke on his rider. It's all just how he feels.
One day he'll ride along peaceable and pleasant for twenty
miles. Next day, before you get started, he's well-nigh un-
manageable. Knows automobiles so's he can lay down
alongside of one and sleep or eat hay out of it. He'll let
nineteen go by without batting an eye, and mebbe the
twentieth, just because he's feeling frisky, he'll cut up
over like a range cayuse. Generally speaking, too lively
for a gentleman, and too unexpected. Present owner
nicknamed him Judas Iscariot, and refuses to sell without
the buyer knowing all about him first. There, that's about
all I know, except look at that mane and tail. Ever see
anything like it? Hair as fine as a baby's."

The dealer was right. Daylight examined the mane
and found it finer than any horse's hair he had ever seen.
Also, its color was unusual in that it was almost auburn.
While he ran his fingers through it. Bob turned his head
and playfully nuzzled Daylight's shoulder.

"Saddle him up, and I'll try him," he told the dealer.
"I wonder if he's used to spurs. No English saddle, mind.
Give me a good Mexican and a curb bit — not too severe,
seeing as he likes to rear."

Daylight superintended the preparations, adjusting the
curb strap and the stirrup length, and doing the cinching.
He shook his head at the martingale, but yielded to the
dealer's advice and allowed it to go on. And Bob, beyond

BURNING DAYLIGHT 21$

spirited restlessness and a few playful attempts, gave no
trouble. Nor in the hour's ride that followed, save for some
permissible curveting and prancing, did he misbehave.
Daylight was delighted; the purchase was immediately
made; and Bob, with riding gear and personal equipment,
was despatched across the bay forthwith to take up his
quarters in the stables of the Oakland Riding Academy.

The next day being Sunday, Daylight was away early,
crossing on the ferry and taking with him Wolf, the leader
of his sled team, the one dog which he had selected to bring
with him when he left Alaska. Quest as he would through
the Piedmont hills and along the many-gated back-road
to Berkeley, Daylight saw nothing of Dede Mason and
her chestnut sorrel. But he had Httle time for disappoint-
ment, for his own chestnut sorrel kept him busy. Bob
proved a handful of impishness and contrariety, and he tried
out his rider as much as his rider tried him out. All of
Daylight's horse knowledge and horse sense was called into
play, while Bob, in turn, worked every trick in his lexicon.
Discovering that his martingale had more slack in it than
usual, he proceeded to give an exhibition of rearing and
hind-leg walking. After ten hopeless minutes of it. Daylight
slipped off and tightened the martingale, whereupon Bob
gave an exhibition of angelic goodness. He fooled Day-
light completely. At the end of half an hour of goodness,
Daylight, lured into confidence, was riding along at a walk
and rolling a cigarette, with slack knees and relaxed seat,
the reins lying on the animal's neck. Bob whirled abruptly
and with lightning swiftness, pivoting on his hind legs, his
fore legs just lifted clear of the ground. Daylight found
himself with his right foot out of the stirrup and his arms
around the animal's neck; and Bob took advantage of the
situation to bolt down the road. With a hope that he should
not encounter Dede Mason at that moment, Daylight re-
gained his seat and checked in the horse.

2l6 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Arrived back at the same spot, Bob whirled again. This
time Daylight kept his seat, but, beyond a futile rein
across the neck, did nothing to prevent the evolution.
He noted that Bob whirled to the right, and resolved
to keep him straightened out by a spur on the left. But so
abrupt and swift was the whirl that warning and accom-
plishment were practically simultaneous.

''Well, Bob," he addressed the animal, at the same time
wiping the sweat from his own eyes, "I'm free to confess
that you're sure the blamedest all-fired quickest creature I
ever saw. I guess the way to fix you is to keep the spur
just a-touching — ah! you brute!"

For, the moment the spur touched him, his left hind leg
had reached forward in a kick that struck the stirrup a
smart blow. Several times, out of curiosity, Daylight at-
tempted the spur, and each time Bob's hoof landed the
stirrup. Then Daylight, following the horse's example of
the unexpected, suddenly drove both spurs into him and
reached him underneath with the quirt.

"You ain't never had a real licking before," he muttered,
as Bob, thus rudely jerked out of the circle of his own
impish mental processes, shot ahead.

Half a dozen times spurs and quirt bit into him, and then
Daylight settled down to enjoy the mad magnificent gallop.
No longer punished, at the end of a half mile Bob eased
down into a fast canter. Wolf, toiling in the rear, was
catching up, and everything was going nicely.

"I'll give you a few pointers on this whirling game, my
boy," Daylight was saying to him, when Bob whirled.

He did it on a gallop, breaking the gallop off short by
fore legs stiffly planted. Daylight fetched up against his
steed's neck vnth clasped arms, and at the same instant,
with fore feet clear of the ground. Bob whirled around. Only
an excellent rider could have escaped being unhorsed, and as
it was, Daylight was nastily near to it. By the time he

BURNING DAYLIGHT 217

recovered his seat, Bob was in full career, bolting the way
he had come, and making Wolf side-jump to the bushes.

"All right, darn you!" Daylight grunted, driving in spurs
and quirt again and again. "Back-track you want to go,
and back-track you sure will go till you're dead sick of it."

When, after a time. Bob attempted to ease down the mad
pace, spurs and quirt went into him again with undiminished
vim and put him to renewed effort. And when, at last, Day-
light decided that the horse had had enough, he turned him
around abruptly and put him into a gentle canter on the
forward track. After a time he reined him in to a stop to
see if he were breathing painfully. Standing for a minute,
Bob turned his head and nuzzled his rider's stirrup in a
roguish, impatient way, as much as to intimate that it was
time they were going on.

"Well, I'll be plumb gosh darned!" was Daylight's com-
ment. "No ill-will, no grudge, no nothing — and after that
lambasting! You're sure a hummer. Bob."

Once again Daylight was lulled into fancied security. For
an hour Bob was all that could be desired of a spirited
mount, when, and as usual without warning, he took to
whirling and bolting. Daylight put a stop to this with spurs
and quirt, running him several punishing miles in the direc-
tion of his bolt. But when he turned him around and
started forward. Bob proceeded to feign fright at trees,
cows, bushes. Wolf, his own shadow — in short, at every
ridiculously conceivable object. At such times, Wolf lay
down in the shade and looked on, while Daylight wrestled
it out.

So the day passed. Among other things. Bob developed
a trick of making believe to whirl and not whirling. This
was as exasperating as the real thing, for each time Daylight
was fooled into tightening his leg grip and into a general
muscular tensing of all his body. And then, after a few
make-believe attempts, Bob actually did whirl and caught

2l8 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Daylight napping again and landed him in the old position,
with clasped arms around the neck. And to the end of the
day, Bob continued to be up to one trick or another ; after
passing a dozen automobiles on the way into Oakland, sud-
denly electing to go mad with fright at a most ordinary
little runabout. And just before he arrived back at the
stable he capped the day with a combined whirling and
rearing that broke the martingale and enabled him to gain a
perpendicular position on his hind legs. At this juncture
a rotten stirrup leather parted, and Daylight was all but
unhorsed.

But he had taken a liking to the animal, and repented
not of his bargain. He realized that Bob was not vicious
nor mean, the trouble being that he was bursting with high
spirits and was endowed with more than the average horse's
intelligence. It was the spirits and the intelligence, com-
bined with inordinate roguishness, that made him what he
was. What was required to control him was a strong hand,
with tempered sternness and yet with the requisite touch of
brutal dominance.

"It's you or me, Bob," Daylight told him more than once
that day.

And to the stableman, that night: —

"My, but ain't he a looker! Ever see anything like him?
Best piece of horseflesh I ever straddled, and I've seen a
few in my time."

And to Bob, who had turned his head and was up to his
playful nuzzling: —

"Good-by, you little bit of all right. See you again next
Sunday a.m., and just you bring along your whole basket
of tricks, you old son-of-a-gun."

CHAPTER XII

Throughout the week Daylight found himself almost as
much interested in Bob as in Dede; and, not being in the
thick of any big deals, he was probably more interested
in both of them than in the business game. Bob's trick
of whirling was of especial moment to him. How to
overcome it, — that was the thing. Suppose he did meet
with Dede out in the hills; and suppose, by some lucky
stroke of fate, he should manage to be riding alongside of
her; then that whirl of Bob's would be most disconcerting
and embarrassing. He was not particularly anxious for her
to see him thrown forward on Bob's neck. On the other
hand, suddenly to leave her and go dashing down the back-
track, plying quirt and spurs, wouldn't do, either.

What was wanted was a method wherewith to prevent
that lightning whirl. He must stop the animal before it
got around. The reins would not do this. Neither would
the spurs. Remained the quirt. But how to accomplish
it? Absent-minded moments were many that week, when,
sitting in his office chair, in fancy he was astride the won-
derful chestnut sorrel and trying to prevent an anticipated
whirl. One such moment, toward the end of the week, oc-
curred in the middle of a conference with Hegan. Hegan,
elaborating a new and dazzling legal vision, became aware
that Daylight was not listening. His eyes had gone lack-
lustre, and he, too, was seeing with inner vision.

"Got it!" he cried suddenly. "Hegan, congratulate me.

219

2 20 BURNING DAYLIGHT

It's as simple as rolling off a log. All I've got to do is
hit him on the nose, and hit him hard."

Then he explained to the startled Hegan, and became a
good listener again, though he could not refrain now and
again from making audible chuckles of satisfaction and
delight. That was the scheme. Bob always whirled to the
right. Very well. He would double the quirt in his hand,
and, the instant of the whirl, that doubled quirt would rap
Bob on the nose. The horse didn't live, after it had once
learned the lesson, that would whirl in the face of the
doubled quirt.

More keenly than ever, during that week in the office,
did Daylight realize that he had no social, nor even human,
contacts with Dede. The situation was such that he could
not ask her the simple question whether or not she was going
riding next Sunday. It was a hardship of a new sort, this
being the employer of a pretty girl. He looked at her often,
when the routine work of the day was going on, the question
he could not ask her tickling at the founts of speech — Was
she going riding next Sunday? And as he looked, he won-
dered how old she was, and what love passages she had had,
must have had, with those college whippersnappers with
whom, according to Morrison, she herded and danced. His
mind was very full of her, those six days between the Sun-
days, and one thing he came to know thoroughly well; he
wanted her. And so much did he want her that his old
timidity of the apron-string was put to rout. He, who had
run away from women most of his life, had now grown so
courageous as to pursue. Some Sunday, sooner or later, he
would meet her outside the office, somewhere in the hills,
and then, if they did not get acquainted, it would be because
she did not care to get acquainted.

Thus he found another card in the hand the mad god had
dealt him. How important that card was to become he did
not dream, yet he decided that it was a pretty good card.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 221

In turn, he doubted. Maybe it was a trick of Luck to bring
calamity and disaster upon him. Suppose Dede wouldn't
have him, and suppose he went on loving her more and
more, harder and harder? All his old generalized terrors of
love revived. He remembered the disastrous love affairs of
men and women he had known in the past. There was
Bertha DooHttle, old Doolittle's daughter, who had been
madly in love with Dartworthy, the rich Bonanza fraction-
owner; and Dartworthy, in turn, not loving Bertha at all,
but madly loving Colonel Walthstone's wife and eloping
down the Yukon with her ; and Colonel Walthstone himself,
madly loving his own wife and lighting out in pursuit of the
fleeing couple. And what had been the outcome? Certainly
Bertha's love had been unfortunate and tragic, and so had
the love of the other three. Down below Minook, Colonel
Walthstone and Dartworthy had fought it out. Dartworthy
had been killed. A bullet through the Colonel's lungs had
so weakened him that he died of pneumonia the following
spring. And the Colonel's wife had no one left alive on
earth to love.

And then there was Freda, drowning herself in the run-
ning mush-ice because of some man on the other side of the
world, and hating him. Daylight, because he had happened
along and pulled her out of the mush-ice and back to life.
And the Virgin. . . . The old memories frightened him.
If this love-germ gripped him good and hard, and if Dede
wouldn't have him, it might be almost as bad as being
gouged out of all he had by Dowsett, Letton, and Guggen-
hammer. Had his nascent desire for Dede been less, he
might well have been frightened out of all thought of her. As
it was, he found consolation in the thought that some love
affairs did come out right. And for all he knew, maybe Luck
had stacked the cards for him to win. Some men were born
lucky, Hved lucky all their days, and died lucky. Perhaps,
too, he was such a man, a born luck-pup who could not lose.

222 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Sunday came, and Bob, out in the Piedmont hills, behaved
like an angel. His goodness, at times, was of the spirited,
prancing order, but otherwise he was a lamb. Daylight, with
doubled quirt ready in his right hand, ached for a whirl, just
one whirl, which Bob, with an excellence of conduct that was
tantalizing, refused to perform. But no Dede did Dayhght
encounter. He vainly circled about among the hill roads,
and in the afternoon took the steep grade over the divide
of the second range and dropped into Maraga Valley. Just
after passing the foot of the descent, he heard the hoof beats
of-a cantering horse. It was from ahead and coming toward
him. What if it were Dede? He turned Bob around and
started to return at a walk. If it were Dede, he was born to
luck, he decided; for the meeting couldn't have occurred
under better circumstances. Here they were, both going in
the same direction, and the canter would bring her up to him
just where the stiff grade would compel a walk. There would
be nothing else for her to do than ride with him to the top of
the divide ; and, once there, the equally stiff descent on the
other side would compel more walking.

The canter came nearer, but he faced straight ahead until
he heard the horse behind check to a walk. Then he glanced
over his shoulder. It was Dede. The recognition was
quick, and, with her, accompanied by surprise. What more
natural thing than that, partly turning his horse, he should
wait till she caught up with him; and that, when abreast,
they should continue abreast on up the grade? He could
have sighed with relief. The thing was accomplished, and
so easily. Greetings had been exchanged; here they were
side by side and going in the same direction with miles and
miles ahead of them.

He noted that her eye was first for the horse and next
for him.

"Oh, what a beauty 1" she had cried at sight of Bob.
From the shining light in her eyes, and the face filled with

BURNING DAYLIGHT 223

delight, he would scarcely have believed that it belonged to
the young woman he had known in the office, the young
woman with the controlled, subdued office face.

"I didn't know you rode," was one of her first remarks.
"I imagined you were wedded to get-there-quick machines."

"I've just taken it up lately," was his answer. "Begin-
ning to get stout, you know, and had to take it off some-
how."

She gave a quick sidewise glance that embraced him
from head to heel, including seat and saddle, and said: —

"But you've ridden before."

She certainly had an eye for horses and things connected
with horses was his thought, as he replied: —

"Not for many years. But I used to think I was a regular
rip-snorter when I was a youngster up in Eastern Oregon,
sneaking away from camp to ride with the cattle and break
cayuses and that sort of thing."

Thus, and to his great relief, were they launched on a
topic of mutual interest. He told her about Bob's tricks, and
of the whirl and his scheme to overcome it; and she agreed
that horses had to be handled with a certain rational sever-
ity, no matter how much one loved them. There was her
Mab, which she had had for eight years and which she had
had break of stall-kicking. The process had been painful
for Mab, but it had cured her.

"You've ridden a lot," Daylight said.

"I really can't remember the first time I was on a horse,"
she told him. "I was born on a ranch, you know, and they
couldn't keep me away from the horses. I must have been
born with the love for them. I had my first pony, all my
own, when I was six. When I was eight I knew what it was
to be all day in the saddle along with Daddy. By the time I
was eleven he was taking me on my first deer hunts. I'd
be lost without a horse. I hate indoors, and without Mab
here I suppose I'd have been sick and dead long ago."

224 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"You like the country?" he queried, at the same moment
catching his first glimpse of a light in her eyes other than
gray.

"As much as I detest the city," she answered. "But a
woman can't earn a living in the country. So I make the
best of it — along with Mab."

And thereat she told him more of her ranch life in the
days before her father died. And Daylight was hugely
pleased with himself. They were getting acquainted. The
conversation had not lagged in the full half hour they had
been together.

"We come pretty close from the same part of the coun-
try," he said. "I was raised in Eastern Oregon, and that's
none so far from Siskiyou."

The next moment he could have bitten out his tongue,
for her quick question was: —

"How did you know I came from Siskiyou? I'm sure
I never mentioned it."

"I don't know," he floundered temporarily. "I heard
somewhere that you were from thereabouts."

Wolf, sliding up at that moment, sleek-footed and like a
shadow, caused her horse to shy and passed the awkward-
ness off, for they talked Alaskan dogs until the conversation
drifted back to horses. And horses it was, all up the grade
and down the other side.

When she talked, he listened and followed her, and yet
all the while he was following his own thoughts and impres-
sions as well. It was a nervy thing for her to do, this riding
astride, and he didn't know, after all, whether he hked it
or not. His ideas of women were prone to be old-fashioned;
they were the ones he had imbibed in the early-day, fron-
tier life of his youth, when no woman was seen on anything
but a side-saddle. He had grown up to the tacit fiction
that women on horseback were not bipeds. It came to
him with a shock, this sight of her so manlike in her saddle.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 225

But he had to confess that the sight looked good to him just
the same.

Two other immediate things about her struck him.
First, there were the golden spots in her eyes. Queer that
he had never noticed them before. Perhaps the light in the
office had not been right, and perhaps they came and
went. No; they were glows of color — a sort of diffused,
golden hght. Nor was it golden, either, but it was nearer
that than any color he knew. It certainly was not any
shade of yellow. A lover's thoughts are ever colored, and
it is to be doubted if any one else in the world would have
called Dede's eyes golden. But Daylight's mood verged
on the tender and melting, and he preferred to think of them
as golden, and therefore they were golden.

And then she was so natural. He had been prepared to
find her a most difficult young woman to get acquainted
with. Yet here it was proving so simple. There was
nothing highfalutin about her company manners — it was
by this homely phrase that he differentiated this Dede on
horseback from the Dede with the office manners whom he
had always known. And yet, while he was delighted with
the smoothness with which everything was going, and with
the fact that they had found plenty to talk about, he was
aware of an irk under it all. After all, this talk was empty
and idle. He was a man of action, and he wanted her,
Dede Mason, the woman ; he wanted her to love him and to
be loved by him; and he wanted all this glorious consum-
mation then and there. Used to forcing issues, used to
gripping men and things and bending them to his will, he
felt, now, the same compulsive prod of mastery. He wanted
to tell her that he loved her and that there was nothing
else for her to do but marry him. And yet he did not
obey the prod. Women were fluttery creatures, and here
mere mastery would prove a bungle. He remembered all
his hunting guile, the long patience of shooting meat in

2 26 BURNING DAYLIGHT

famine when a hit or a miss meant life or death. Truly,
though this girl did not yet mean quite that, nevertheless,
she meant much to him — more, now, than ever, as he
rode beside her, glancing at her as often as he dared, she
in her corduroy riding-habit, so bravely manlike, yet so
essentially and reveahngly woman, smiling, laughing, talk-
ing, her eyes sparkling, the flush of a day of sun and sum-
mer breeze warm in her cheeks.

CHAPTER XIII

Another Sunday man and horse and dog roved the Pied-
mont hills. And again Daylight and Dede rode together.
But this time her surprise at meeting him was tinctured
with suspicion; or rather, her surprise was of another order.
The previous Sunday had been quite accidental, but his
appearing a second time among her favorite haunts hinted
of more than the fortuitous. Dayhght was made to feel
that she suspected him, and he, remembering that he had
seen a big rock quarry near Blair Park, stated offhand that
he was thinking of buying it. His one-time investment
in a brickyard had put the idea into his head — an idea that
he decided was a good one, for it enabled him to suggest
that she ride along with him to inspect the quarry.

So several hours he spent in her company, in which she
was much the same girl as before, natural, unaffected, light-
hearted, smiling and laughing, a good fellow, talking horses
with unflagging enthusiasm, making friends with the crusty-
tempered Wolf, and expressing the desire to ride Bob, whom
she declared she was more in love with than ever. At this
last Daylight demurred. Bob was full of dangerous tricks,
and he wouldn't trust any one on him except his worst
enemy.

"You think, because I'm a girl, that I don't know any-
thing about horses," she flashed back. "But I've been
thrown off and bucked off enough not to be over-confident.
And I'm not a fool. I wouldn't get on a bucking horse.
I've learned better. And I'm not afraid of any other kind.
And you say yourself that Bob doesn't buck."

227

2 28 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"But you've never seen him cutting up didoes," Daylight
contended.

"But you must remember I've seen a few others, and
I've been on several of them myself. I broke Mab here
to electric cars, locomotives, and automobiles. She was a
raw range colt when she came to me. Broken to saddle,
that was all. Besides, I won't hurt your horse."

Against his better judgment. Daylight gave in, and, on
an unfrequented stretch of road, changed saddles and
bridles.

"Remember, he's greased hghtning," he warned, as he
helped her to mount.

She nodded, while Bob pricked up his ears to the knowl-
edge that he had a strange rider on his back. The fun came
quickly enough — too quickly for Dede, who found herself
against Bob's neck as he pivoted around and bolted the
other way. Daylight followed on her horse and watched.
He saw her check the animal quickly to a standstill, and
immediately, with rein across neck and a decisive prod of
the left spur, whirl him back the way he had come and
almost as swiftly.

"Get ready to give him the quirt on the nose," Daylight
called.

But, too quickly for her, Bob whirled again, though this
time, by a severe effort, she saved herself from the undigni-
fied position against his neck. His bolt was more deter-
mined, but she pulled him into a prancing walk, and turned
him roughly back with her spurred heel. There was nothing
feminine in the way she handled him; her method was
imperative and masculine. Had this not been so. Day-
light would have expected her to say she had had enough.
But that little preliminary exhibition had taught him some-
thing of Dede's quality. And if it had not, a glance at her
gray eyes, just perceptibly angry with herself, and at her
firm-set mouth, would have told him the same thing. Day-

BURNING DAYLIGHT 229

light did not suggest anything, while he hung almost glee-
fully upon her actions in anticipation of what the fractious
Bob was going to get. And Bob got it, on his next
whirl, or attempt, rather, for he was no more than half-
way around when the quirt met him smack on his tender
nose. There and then, in his bewilderment, surprise, and
pain, his fore feet, just skimming above the road, dropped
down.

"Great!" Daylight applauded. ''A couple more will fix
him. He's too smart not to know when he's beaten,"

Again Bob tried. But this time he was barely quarter
around when the doubled quirt on his nose compelled him
to drop his fore feet to the road. Then, with neither rein
nor spur, but by the mere threat of the quirt, she straight-
ened him out.

Dede looked triumphantly at Daylight.

"Let me give him a run?" she asked.

Daylight nodded, and she shot down the road. He
watched her out of sight around the bend, and watched till
she came into sight returning. She certainly could sit her
horse, was his thought, and she was a sure enough hummer.
God, she was the wife for a man! Made most of them
look pretty slim. And to think of her hammering all week
at a typewriter. That was no place for her. She should
be a man's wife, taking it easy, with silks and satins and
diamonds (his frontier notion of what befitted a wife be-
loved), and dogs, and horses, and such things — "And
we'll see, Mr. Burning Daylight, what you and me can do
about it," he murmured to himself! and aloud to her: —

"You'll do, Miss Mason; you'll do. There's nothing too
good in horseflesh you don't deserve, a woman who can
ride like that. No; stay with him, and we'll jog along to
the quarry." He chuckled. "Say, he actually gave just
the least mite of a groan that last time you fetched him.
Did you hear it? And did you see the way he dropped his

230 BURNING DAYLIGHT

feet to the road — just like he'd struck a stone wall. And
he's got savvee enough to know from now on that that
same stone wall will be always there ready for him to lam
into."

When he parted from her that afternoon, at the gate of
the road that led to Berkeley, he drew off to the edge of the
intervening clump of trees, where, unobserved, he watched
her out of sight. Then, turning to ride back into Oakland,
a thought came to him that made him grin ruefully as he
muttered: "And now it's up to me to make good and buy
that blamed quarry. Nothing less than that can give me
an excuse for snooping around these hills."

But the quarry was doomed to pass out of his plans for a
time, for on the following Sunday he rode alone. No Dede
on a chestnut sorrel came across the back-road from Berke-
ley that day, nor the day a week later. Daylight was
beside himself with impatience and apprehension, though
in the office he contained himself. He noted no change in
her, and strove to let none show in himself. The same old
monotonous routine went on, though now it was irritating
and maddening. Daylight found a big quarrel on his
hands with a world that wouldn't let a man behave toward
his stenographer after the way of all men and women.
What was the good of owning millions anyway? he de-
manded one day of the desk-calendar, as she passed out
after receiving his dictation.

As the third week drew to a close and another desolate
Sunday confronted him. Daylight resolved to speak, office
or no office. And as was his nature, he went simply and
directly to the point. She had finished her work with him,
and was gathering her note pad and pencils together to
depart, when he said: —

"Oh, one thing more, Miss Mason, and I hope you won't
mind my being frank and straight out. You've struck me
right along as a sensible-minded girl, and I don't think

BURNING DAYLIGHT 23 1

you'll take offence at what I'm going to say. You know how
long you've been in the office — it's years, now, several
of them, anyway; and you know I've always been straight
and aboveboard with you. I've never what you call —
presumed. Because you were in my office I've tried to be
more careful than if — if you wasn't in my office — you
understand. But just the same, it don't make me any the
less human. I'm a lonely sort of a fellow — don't take that
as a bid for kindness. What I mean by it is to try and tell
you just how much those two rides with you have meant.
And now I hope you won't mind my just asking why you
haven't been out riding the last two Sundays?"

He came to a stop and waited, feeling very warm and
awkward, the perspiration starting in tiny beads on his
forehead. She did not speak immediately, and he stepped
across the room and raised the window higher.

"I have been riding," she answered; "in other direc-
tions."

"But why . . .?" He failed somehow to complete the
question. "Go ahead and be frank with me," he urged.
"Just as frank as I am with you. Why didn't you ride in
the Piedmont hills? I hunted for you everywhere."

"And that is just why." She smiled, and looked him
straight in the eyes for a moment, then dropped her own.
"Surely, you understand, Mr. Harnish."

He shook his head glumly.

"I do, and I don't. I ain't used to city ways by a long
shot. There's things one mustn't do, which I don't mind as
long as I don't want to do them."

"But when you do?" she asked quickly.

"Then I do them." His lips had drawn firmly with this
affirmation of will, but the next instant he was amending
the statement: "That is, I mostly do. But what gets me
is the things you mustn't do when they're not wrong and
they won't hurt anybody — this riding, for instance."

232 BURNING DAYLIGHT

She played nervously with a pencil for a time, as if debat-
ing her reply, while he waited patiently.

"This riding," she began; "it's not what they call the
right thing, I leave it to you. You know the world. You
are Mr, Harnish, the millionaire — "

"Gambler," he broke in harshly.

She nodded acceptance of his term and went on.

"And I'm a stenographer in your office — "

"You're a thousand times better than me — " he at-
tempted to interpolate, but was in turn interrupted.

"It isn't a question of such things. It's a simple and
fairly common situation that must be considered, I work
for you. And it isn't what you or I might think, but what
other persons will think. And you don't need to be told
any more about that. You know yourself."

Her cool, matter-of-fact speech belied her — or so Day-
light thought, looking at her perturbed feminineness, at
the rounded lines of her figure, the breast that deeply rose
and fell, and at the color that was now excited in her cheeks.

"I'm sorry I frightened you out of your favorite stamp-
ing ground," he said rather aimlessly.

"You didn't frighten me," she retorted, with a touch of
fire. "I'm not a silly seminary girl. I've taken care of
myself for a long time now, and I've done it without being
frightened. We were together two Sundays, and I'm sure I
wasn't frightened of Bob, or you. It isn't that. I have no
fears of taking care of myself, but the world insists on tak-
ing care of one as well. That's the trouble. It's what the
world would have to say about me and my employer meet-
ing regularly and riding in the hills on Sundays. It's funny,
but it's so, I could ride with one of the clerks without
remark, but with you — no,"

"But the world don't know and don't need to know," he
cried,

"Which makes it worse, in a way, feeling guilty of nothing

BURNING DAYLIGHT 233

and yet sneaking around back-roads with all the feeling of
doing something wrong. It would be finer and braver for
me publicly . . ."

"To go to lunch with me on a week-day," Daylight said,
divining the drift of her uncompleted argument.

She nodded.

"I didn't have that quite in mind, but it will do. I'd
prefer doing the brazen thing and having everybody know
it, to doing the furtive thing and being found out. Not
that I'm asking to be invited to lunch," she added, with a
smile; "but I'm sure you understand my position."

"Then why not ride open and aboveboard with me in
the hills?" he urged.

She shook her head with what he imagined was just the
faintest hint of regret, and he went suddenly and almost
maddeningly hungry for her.

"Look here, Miss Mason, I know you don't like this
talking over of things in the office. Neither do I. It's
part of the whole thing, I guess; a man ain't supposed to
talk anything but business with his stenographer. Will
you ride with me next Sunday, and we can talk it over
thoroughly then and reach some sort of a conclusion. Out
in the hills is the place where you can talk something besides
business. I guess you've seen enough of me to know I'm
pretty square. I — I do honor and respect you, and . . .
and all that, and I . . ." He was beginning to flounder,
and the hand that rested on the desk blotter was visibly
trembling. He strove to pull himself together. "I just
want to harder than anything ever in my life before. I
— I — I can't explain myself, but I do, that's all. Will
you? — Just next Sunday? To-morrow?"

Nor did he dream that her low acquiescence was due, as
much as anything else, to the beads of sweat on his fore-
head, his trembling hand, and his all too-evident general
distress.

CHAPTER XIV

"Of course, there's no way of telling what anybody wants
from what they say." Daylight rubbed Bob's rebellious
ear with his quirt and pondered with dissatisfaction the
words he had just uttered. They did not say what he had
meant them to say. ''What I'm driving at is that you say
flatfooted that you won't meet me again, and you give your
reasons, but how am I to know they are your real reasons?
Mebbe you just don't want to get acquainted with me, and
won't say so for fear of hurting my feelings. Don't you see?
I'm the last man in the world to shove in where I'm not
wanted. And if I thought you didn't care a whoop to see
anything more of me, why, I'd clear out so blamed quick
you couldn't see me for smoke."

Dede smiled at him in acknowledgment of his words, but
rode on silently. And that smile, he thought, was the most
sweetly wonderful smile he had ever seen. There was a
difference in it, he assured himself, from any smile she had
ever given him before. It was the smile of one who knew
him just a little bit, of one who was just the least mite
acquainted with him. Of course, he checked himself up the
next moment, it was unconscious on her part. It was sure
to come in the intercourse of any two persons. Any stran-
ger, a business man, a clerk, anybody after a few casual
meetings would show similar signs of friendliness. It was
bound to happen, but in her case it made more impression
on him; and, besides, it was such a sweet and wonderful
smile. Other women he had known had never smiled like
that; he was sure of it.

234

BURNING DAYLIGHT 235

It had been a happy day. Daylight had met her on the
back-road from Berkeley, and they had had hours together.
It was only now, with the day drawing to a close and with
them approaching the gate of the road to Berkeley, that he
had broached the important subject.

She began her answer to his last contention, and he lis-
tened gratefully.

"But suppose, just suppose, that the reasons I have given
are the only ones? — that there is no question of my not
wanting to know you?"

"Then I'd go on urging like Sam Scratch," he said
quickly. "Because, you see, I've always noticed that folks
that incline to anything are much more open to hearing the
case stated. But if you did have that other reason up
your sleeve, if you didn't want to know me, if — if, well,
if you thought my feelings oughtn't to be hurt just because
you had a good job with me . . ." Here, his calm consid-
eration of a possibility was swamped by the fear that it was
an actuality, and he lost the thread of his reasoning. "Well,
anyway, all you have to do is to say the word and I'll clear
out. And with no hard feelings; it would be just a case of
bad luck for me. So be honest. Miss Mason, please, and
tell me if that's the reason — I almost got a hunch that it
is."

She glanced up at him, her eyes abruptly and slightly
moist, half with hurt, half with anger.

"Oh, but that isn't fair," she cried. "You give me the
choice of lying to you and hurting you in order to protect
myself by getting rid of you, or of throwing away my pro-
tection by telling you the truth, for then you, as you said
yourself, would stay and urge."

Her cheeks were flushed, her lips tremulous, but she con^
tinued to look him frankly in the eyes.

Daylight smiled grimly with satisfaction.

"I'm real glad. Miss Mason, real glad for those words."

236 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"But they won't serve you," she went on hastily. "They
can't serve you. I refuse to let them. This is our last
ride, and . . . here is the gate."

Ranging her mare alongside, she bent, slid the catch, and
followed the opening gate.

"No; please, no," she said, as Daylight started to follow.

Humbly acquiescent, he pulled Bob back, and the gate
swung shut between them. But there was more to say, and
she did not ride on.

"Listen, Miss Mason," he said, in a low voice that shook
with sincerity; "I want to assure you of one thing. I'm
not just trying to fool around with you. I like you, I want
you, and I was never more in earnest in my life. There's
nothing wrong in my intentions or anything like that. What
I mean is strictly honorable — "

But the expression of her face made him stop. She was
angry, and she was laughing at the same time.

"The last thing you should have said," she cried. "It's
like a — a matrimonial bureau : intentions strictly honor-
able; object, matrimony. But it's no more than I deserved.
This is what I suppose you call urging like Sam Scratch."

The tan had bleached out of Daylight's skin since the
time he came to live under city roofs, so that the flush of
blood showed redly as it crept up his neck past the collar
and overspread his face. Nor in his exceeding discomfort
did he dream that she was looking upon him at that moment
with more kindness than at any time that day. It was not
in her experience to behold big grown-up men who blushed
like boys, and already she repented the sharpness into
which she had been surprised.

"Now, look here. Miss Mason," he began, slowly and
stumblingly at first, but accelerating into a rapidity of
utterance that was almost incoherent; "I'm a rough sort
of a man, I know that, and I know I don't know much of
anything. I've never had any training in nice things. I've

BURNING DAYLIGHT 237

never made love before, and I've never been in love before
either — and I don't know how to go about it any more than
a thundering idiot. What you want to do is get behind
my tomfool words and get a feel of the man that's behind
them. That's me, and I mean all right, if I don't know how
to go about it."

Dede Mason had quick, birdlike ways, almost flitting
from mood to mood; and she was all contrition on the
instant.

"Forgive me for laughing," she said across the gate.
"It wasn't really laughter. I was surprised off my guard,
and hurt, too. You see, Mr. Harnish, I've not been . . ."

She paused, in sudden fear of completing the thought
into which her birdhke precipitancy had betrayed her.

"What you mean is that you've not been used to such
sort of proposing," Daylight said; "a sort of on-the-run,
'Howdy, glad-to-make-your-acquaintance, won't-you-be-
mine' proposition."

She nodded and broke into laughter, in which he joined,
and which served to pass the awkwardness away. He
gathered heart at this, and went on in greater confidence,
with cooler head and tongue.

"There, you see, you prove my case. You've had ex-
perience in such matters. I don't doubt you've had slathers
of proposals. Well, I haven't, and I'm like a fish out of
water. Besides, this ain't a proposal. It's a peculiar situa-
tion, that's all, and I'm in a corner. I've got enough plain
horse-sense to know a man ain't supposed to argue marriage
with a girl as a reason for getting acquainted with her.
And right there was where I was in the hole. Number
one, I can't get acquainted with you in the office. Number
two, you say you won't see me out of the office to give me
a chance. Number three, your reason is that folks will
talk because you work for me. Number four, I just got to
get acquainted with you, and I just got to get you to see

238 BURNING DAYLIGHT

that I mean fair and all right. Number five, there you
are on one side the gate getting ready to go, and me here on
the other side the gate pretty desperate and bound to say
something to make you reconsider. Number six, I said it.
And now and finally, I just do want you to reconsider."

And, listening to him, pleasuring in the sight of his ear-
nest, perturbed face and in the simple, homely phrases that
but emphasized his earnestness and marked the difference
between him and the average run of men she had known,
she forgot to listen and lost herself in her own thoughts.
The love of a strong man is ever a lure to a normal woman,
and never more strongly did Dede feel the lure than now,
looking across the closed gate at Burning Daylight. Not
that she would ever dream of marrying him — she had a
score of reasons against it; but why not at least see more
of him? He was certainly not repulsive to her. On the
contrary, she Uked him, had always liked him from the day
she had first seen him and looked upon his lean Indian
face and into his flashing Indian eyes. He was a figure of
a man in more ways than his mere magnificent muscles.
Besides, Romance had gilded him, this doughty, rough-
hewn adventurer of the North, this man of many deeds
and many millions, w^ho had come down out of the Arctic
to wrestle and fight so masterfully with the men of the
South.

Savage as a Red Indian, gamb^r and profligate, a man
without morals, whose vengeance was never glutted and
who stamped on the faces of all who opposed him — oh, yes,
she knew all the hard names he had been called. Yet she
was not afraid of him. There was more than that in the
connotation of his name. Burning Daylight called up other
things as well. They were there in the newspapers, the
magazines, and the books on the Klondike. When all was
said. Burning Daylight had a mighty connotation — one to
touch any woman's imagination, as it touched hers, the gate

BURNING DAYLIGHT 239

between them, listening to the wistful and impassioned
simplicity of his speech. Dede was after all a woman, with
a woman's sex-vanity, and it was this vanity that was
pleased by the fact that such a man turned in his need to
her.

And there was more that passed through her mind —
sensations of tiredness and loneliness ; trampling squadrons
and shadowy armies of vague feelings and vaguer prompt-
ings; and deeper and dimmer whisperings and echoings,
the flutterings of forgotten generations crystallized into
being and fluttering anew and always, undreamed and
unguessed, subtle and potent, the spirit and essence of life
that under a thousand deceits and masks forever makes
for Ufe. It was a strong temptation, just to ride with this
man in the hills. It would be that only and nothing more,
for she was firmly convinced that his way of life could never
be her way. On the other hand, she was vexed by none of
the ordinary feminine fears and timidities. That she could
take care of herself under any and all circumstances she
never doubted. Then why not? It was such a little thing,
after all.

She led an ordinary, humdrum life at best. She ate and
slept and worked, and that was about all. As if in review,
her anchorite existence passed before her: six days of the
week spent in the office and in journeying back and forth on
the ferry; the hours stolen before bedtime for snatches of
song at the piano, for doing her own special laundering, for
sewing and mending and casting up of meagre accounts;
the two evenings a week of social diversion she permitted
herself; the other stolen hours and Saturday afternoons
spent with her brother at the hospital ; and the seventh day,
Sunday, her day of solace, on Mab's back, out among the
blessed hills. But it was lonely, this solitary riding. No-
body of her acquaintance rode. Several girls at the Uni-
versity had been persuaded into trying it, but after a Sun-

240 BURNING DAYLIGHT

day or two on hired livery hacks they had lost interest.
There was Madeline, who bought her own horse and rode
enthusiastically for several months, only to get married and
go away to live in Southern California. After years of it,
one did get tired of this eternal riding alone.

He was such a boy, this big giant of a milHonaire who had
half the rich men of San Francisco afraid of him. Such a
boy! She had never imagined this side of his nature.

''How do folks get married?" he was saying. "Why,
number one, they meet; number two, like each other's
looks; number three, get acquainted; and number four,
get married or not, according to how they like each other
after getting acquainted. But how in thunder we're to
have a chance to find out whether we like each other enough
is beyond my sawee, unless we make that chance ourselves.
I'd come to see you, call on you, only I know you're just
rooming or boarding, and that won't do."

Suddenly, with a change of mood, the situation appeared
to Dede ridiculously absurd. She felt a desire to laugh —
not angrily, not hysterically, but just jollily. It was so
funny. Herself, the stenographer, he, the notorious and
powerful gambling millionaire, and the gate between them
across which poured his argument of people getting ac-
quainted and married. Also, it was an impossible situation.
On the face of it, she could not go on with it. This pro-
gramme of furtive meetings in the hills would have to dis-
continue. There would never be another meeting. And if,
denied this, he tried to woo her in the office, she would be
compelled to lose a very good position, and that would be an
end of the episode. It was not nice to contemplate ; but the
world of men, especially in the cities, she had not found
particularly nice. She had not worked for her living for
years without losing a great many of her illusions.

"We won't do any sneaking or hiding around about it,"
Daylight was explaining. "We'll ride around as bold as

BURNING DAYLIGHT 24!

you please, and if anybody sees us, why, let them. If they
talk — well, so long as our consciences are straight we
needn't worry. Say the word, and Bob will have on his
back the happiest man alive."

She shook her head, pulled in the mare, who was im-
patient to be off for home, and glanced significantly at the
lengthening shadows.

"It's getting late now, anyway," Daylight hurried on,
"and we've settled nothing after all. Just one more Sun-
day, anyway — that's not asking much — to settle it in."

"We've had all day," she said.

"But we started to talk it over too late. We'll tackle it
earlier next time. This is a big serious proposition with
me, I can tell you. Say next Sunday ?"^

"Are men ever fair?" she asked. "You know thoroughly
well that by 'next Sunday' you mean many Sundays."

"Then let it be many Sundays," he cried recklessly, while
she thought that she had never seen him looking hand-
somer. "Say the word. Only say the word. Next Sunday
at the quarry ..."

She gathered the reins into her hand preliminary to
starting.

"Good night," she said, "and — "

"Yes," he whispered, with just the faintest touch of im-
perativeness.

"Yes," she said, her voice low but distinct.

At the same moment she put the mare into a canter and
went down the road without a backward glance, intent on
an analysis of her own feelings. With her mind made up
to say no — and to the last instant she had been so re-
solved — her lips nevertheless had said yes. Or at least it
seemed the lips. She had not intended to consent. Then
why had she? Her first surprise and bewilderment at go
wholly unpremeditated an act gave way to consternation
as she considered its consequences. She knew that Burn-

242 BUENING DAYLIGHT

ing Daylight was not a man to be trifled with, that under
his simplicity and boyishness he was essentially a dominant,
male creature, and that she had pledged herself to a future
of inevitable stress and storm. And again she demanded
of herself why she had said yes at the very moment when
it had been farthest from her intention.

CHAPTER XV

Life at the office went on much the way it had always
gone. Never, by word or look, did they acknowledge that
the situation was in any wise different from what it had al-
ways been. Each Sunday saw the arrangement made for the
following Sunday's ride ; nor was this ever referred to in the
office. Daylight was fastidiously chivalrous on this point.
He did not want to lose her from the office. The sight of her
at her work was to him an undiminishing joy. Nor did
he abuse this by lingering over dictation or by devising
extra work that would detain her longer before his eyes. But
over and beyond such sheer selfishness of conduct was his
love of fair play. He scorned to utilize the accidental ad-
vantages of the situation. Somewhere within him was a
higher appraisement of love than mere possession. He
wanted to be loved for himself, with a fair field for both
sides.

On the other hand, had he been the most artful of
schemers he could not have pursued a wiser policy. Bird-
like in her love of individual freedom, the last woman in the
world to be bullied in her affections, she keenly appreciated
the niceness of his attitude. She did this consciously, but
deeper than all consciousness, and intangible as gossamer,
were the effects of this. All unrealizable, save for some su-
preme moment, did the web of Daylight's personality creep
out and around her. Filament by filament, these secret
and undreamable bonds were being established. They it
was that could have given the cue to her saying yes when she
had meant to say no. And in some such fashion, in some

243

244 BURNING DAYLIGHT

future crisis of greater moment, might she not, in violation
of all dictates of sober judgment, give another uninten-
tional consent?

Among other good things resulting from his growing in-
timacy with Dede, was Daylight's not caring to drink so
much as formerly. There was a lessening in desire for
alcohol of which even he at last became aware. In a way,
she herself was the needed inhibition. The thought of her
was like a cocktail. Or, at any rate, she substituted for a
certain percentage of cocktails. From the strain of his
unnatural city existence and of his intense gambling opera-
tions, he had drifted on to the cocktail route. A wall must
forever be built to give him easement from the high pitch,
and Dede became a part of this wall. Her personality, her
laughter, the intonations of her voice, the impossible golden
glow of her eyes, the light on her hair, her form, her dress,
her actions on horseback, her merest physical mannerisms
— all, pictured over and over in his mind and dwelt upon,
served to take the place of many a cocktail or long Scotch
and soda.

In spite of their high resolve, there was a very measurable
degree of the furtive in their meetings. In essence, these
meetings were stolen. They did not ride out brazenly to-
gether in the face of the world. On the contrary, they met
always unobserved, she riding across the many-gated back-
road from Berkeley to meet him halfway. Nor did they
ride on any save unfrequented roads, preferring to cross the
second range of hills and travel among a church-going
farmer folk who would scarcely have recognized even Day-
light from his newspaper photographs.

He found Dede a good horsewoman — good not merely
in riding but in endurance. There were days when they
covered sixty, seventy, and even eighty miles; nor did
Dede ever claim any day too long, nor — another strong
recommendation to Daylight — did the hardest day ever

BURNING DAYLIGHT 245

see the slightest chafe of the chestnut sorrel's back. "A
sure enough hummer," was Daylight's stereotyped but ever
enthusiastic verdict to himself.

They learned much of each other on these long, uninter-
rupted rides. They had nothing much to talk about but
themselves, and, while she received a liberal education con-
cerning Arctic travel and gold-mining, he, in turn, touch by
touch, painted an ever clearer portrait of her. She amphfied
the ranch life of her girlhood, prattling on about horses and
dogs and persons and things until it was as if he saw the
whole process of her growth and her becoming. All this
he was able to trace on through the period of her father's
failure and death, when she had been compelled to leave the
university and go into office work. The brother, too, she
spoke of, and of her long struggle to have him cured and of
her now fading hopes. Daylight decided that it was easier
to come to an understanding of her than he had anticipated,
though he was always aware that behind and under all he
knew of her was the mysterious and baffling woman and sex.
There, he was humble enough to confess to himself, was a
chartless, shoreless sea, about which he knew nothing and
which he must nevertheless somehow navigate.

His lifelong fear of woman had originated out of non-
understanding and had also prevented him from reaching
any understanding. Dede on horseback, Dede gathering
poppies on a summer hillside, Dede taking down dictation
in her swift shorthand strokes — all this was comprehensible
to him. But he did not know the Dede who so quickly
changed from mood to mood, the Dede who refused stead-
fastly to ride with him and then suddenly consented, the
Dede in whose eyes the golden glow forever waxed and
waned and whispered hints and messages that were not for
his ears. In all such things he saw the glimmering pro-
fundities of sex, acknowledged their lure, and accepted
them as incomprehensible.

246 BURNING DAYLIGHT

There was another side of her, too, of which he was con-
sciously ignorant. She knew the books, was possessed of
that mysterious and awful thing called "culture." And
yet, what continually surprised him was that this culture
was never obtruded on their intercourse. She did not talk
books, nor art, nor similar folderols. Homely minded as
he was himself, he found her almost equally homely minded.
She liked the simple and the out-of-doors, the horses and
the hills, the sunlight and the flowers. He found himself in
a partly new flora, to which she was the guide, pointing out
to him all the varieties of the oaks, making him acquainted
with the madroiio and the manzanita, teaching him the
names, habits, and habitats of unending series of wild
flowers, shrubs, and ferns. Her keen woods eye was another
delight to him. It had been trained in the open, and little
escaped it. One day, as a test, they strove to see which could
discover the greater number of birds' nests. And he, who
had always prided himself on his own acutely trained ob-
servation, found himself hard put to keep his score ahead.
At the end of the day he was but three nests in the lead, one
of which she challenged stoutly and of which even he con-
fessed serious doubt. He complimented her and told her
that her success must be due to the fact that she was a bird
herself, with all a bird's keen vision and quick-flashing ways.

The more he knew her the more he became convinced
of this birdlike quality in her. That was why she liked to
ride, he argued. It was the nearest approach to flying. A
field of poppies, a glen of ferns, a row of poplars on a coun-
try lane, the tawny brown of a hillside, the shaft of sunhght
on a distant peak — all such were provocative of quick joys
which seemed to him. like so many outbursts of song. Her
joys were in little things, and she seemed always singing.
Even in sterner things it was the same. When she rode Bob
and fought with that magnificent brute for mastery, the
qualities of an eagle were uppermost in her.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 247

These quick little joys of hers were sources of joy to him.
He joyed in her joy, his eyes as excitedly fixed on her as
hers were fixed on the object of her attention. Also through
her he came to a closer discernment and keener apprecia-
tion of nature. She showed him colors in the landscape that
he would never have dreamed were there. He had known
only the primary colors. All colors of red were red. Black
was black, and brown was just plain brown until it became
yellow, when it was no longer brown. Purple he had always
imagined was red, something like blood, until she taught him
better. Once they rode out on a high hill brow where wind-
blown poppies blazed about their horses' knees, and she was
in an ecstasy over the lines of the many distances. Seven,
she counted, and he, who had gazed on landscapes all his
life, for the first time learned what a "distance" was. After
that, and always, he looked upon the face of nature with a
more seeing eye, learning a delight of his own in surveying
the serried ranks of the upstanding ranges, and in slow con-
templation of the purple summer mists that haunted the
languid creases of the distant hills.

But through it all ran the golden thread of love. At first
be had been content just to ride with Dede and to be on
comradely terms with her; but the desire and the need for
her increased. The more he knew of her, the higher was his
appraisal. Had she been reserved and haughty with him, or
been merely a giggling, simpering creature of a woman, it
would have been different. Instead, she amazed him with
her simplicity and wholesomeness, with her great store of
comradeliness. This latter was the unexpected. He had
never looked upon woman in that way. Woman, the toy;
woman, the harpy; woman, the necessary wife and mother
of the race's offspring, — all this had been his expectation
and understanding of woman. But woman, the comrade
and playfellow and joyfellow — this was what Dede had
surprised him in. And the more she became worth while.

248 BURNING DAYLIGHT

the more ardently his love burned, unconsciously shading
his voice with caresses, and with equal unconsciousness
flaring up signal fires in his eyes. Nor was she bhnd to it,
yet, like many women before her, she thought to play with
the pretty fire and escape the consequent conflagration.

"Winter will soon be coming on," she said regretfully,
and with provocation, one day, "and then there won't be
any more riding."

"But I must see you in the winter just the same," he
cried hastily.

She shook her head.

"We have been very happy and all that," she said, look-
ing at him with steady frankness. "I remember your fool-
ish argument for getting acquainted, too; but it won't lead
to anything; it can't. I know myself too well to be mis-
taken."

Her face was serious, even solicitous with desire not to
hurt, and her eyes were unwavering, but in them was the
light, golden and glowing — the abyss of sex into which he
was now unafraid to gaze.

"I've been pretty good," he declared. "I leave it to you
if I haven't. It's been pretty hard, too, I can tell you.
You just think it over. Not once have I said a word about
love to you, and me loving you all the time. That's going
some for a man that's used to having his own way. I'm
somewhat of a rusher when it comes to travelhng. I reckon
I'd rush God Almighty if it came to a race over the ice.
And yet I didn't rush you. I guess this fact is an indica-
tion of how much I do love you. Of course I want you to
marry me. Have I said a word about it, though? Nary a
chirp, nary a flutter. I've been quiet and good, though it's
almost made me sick at times, this keeping quiet. I haven't
asked you to marry me. I'm not asking you now. Oh, not
but what you satisfy me. I sure know you're the wife for
me. But how about myself? Do you know me well enough

BURNING DAYLIGHT ^49

to know your own mind?" He shrugged his shoulders. "I
don't know, and I ain't going to take chances on it now.
You've got to know for sure whether you think you could
get along with me or not, and I'm playing a slow conser-
vative game. I ain't a-going to lose for overlooking my
hand."

This was love-making of a sort beyond Dede's experience.
Nor had she ever heard of anything like it. Furthermore,
its lack of ardor carried with it a shock which she could
overcome only by remembering the way his hand had trem-
bled in the past, and by remembering the passion she had
seen that very day and every day in his eyes, or heard in
nis voice. Then, too, she recollected what he had said to
her weeks before: "Maybe you don't know what patience
is," he had said, and thereat told her of shooting squirrels
with a big rifle the time he and Elijah Davis had starved
on the Stewart River.

"So you see," he urged, "just for a square deal we've
got to see some more of each other this winter. Most likely
your mind ain't made up yet — "

"But it is," she interrupted. "I wouldn't dare permit
myself to care for you. Happiness, for me, would not lie
that way. I like you, Mr. Harnish, and all that, but it can
never be more than that."

"It's because you don't like my way of living," he
charged, thinking in his own mind of the sensational joy-
rides and general profligacy with which the newspapers had
credited him — thinking this, and wondering whether or
not, in maiden modesty, she would disclaim knowledge of it.

To his surprise, her answer was flat and uncompromising.

"No; I don't."

"I know I've been brash on some of those rides that got
into the papers," he began his defence, "and that I've been
travelling with a lively crowd — "

"I don't mean that," she said, "though I know about it.

2 50 BURNING DAYLIGHT

too, and can^t say that I like it. But it is your life in gen-
eral, your business. There are women in the world who
could marry a man like you and be happy, but I couldn't.
And the more I cared for such a man, the more unhappy I
should be. You see, my unhappiness, in turn, would tend to
make him unhappy. I should make a mistake, and he would
make an equal mistake, though his would not be so hard on
him because he would still have his business."

"Business!" Daylight gasped. "What's wrong with my
business? I play fair and square. There's nothing under-
hand about it, which can't be said of most businesses,
whether of the big corporations or of the cheating, lying,
little corner-grocerymen. I play the straight rules of the
game, and I don't have to lie or cheat or break my word."

Dede hailed with relief the change in the conversation
and at the same time the opportunity to speak her mind.

"In ancient Greece," she began pedantically, "a man was
judged a good citizen who built houses, planted trees — "
She did not complete the quotation, but drew the conclu-
sion hurriedly. "How many houses have you built? How
many trees have you planted?"

He shook his head non-committally, for he had not
grasped the drift of the argument.

"Well," she went on, "two winters ago you cornered
coal — "

"Just locally," he grinned reminiscently, "just locally.
And I took advantage of the car shortage and the strike in
British Columbia."

"But you didn't dig any of that coal yourself. Yet you
forced it up four dollars a ton and made a lot of money.
That was your business. You made the poor people pay
more for their coal. You played fair, as you said, but you
put your hands down into all their pockets and took their
money away from them. I know. I burn a grate fire in
my sitting-room at Berkeley. And instead of eleven dollars

BURNING DAYLIGHT 2$!

a ton for Rock Wells, I paid fifteen dollars that winter.
You robbed me of four dollars. I could stand it. But there
were thousands of the very poor who could not stand it.
You might call it legal gambling, but to me it was down-
right robbery,"

Daylight was not abashed. This was no revelation to
him. He remembered the old woman who made wine in
the Sonoma hills and the millions like her who were made
to be robbed.

"Now look here. Miss Mason, you've got me there
slightly, I grant. But you've seen me in business a long
time now, and you know I don't make a practice of raiding
the poor people. I go after the big fellows. They're my
meat. They rob the poor, and I rob them. That coal deal
was an accident. I wasn't after the poor people in that, but
after the big fellows, and I got them, too. The poor people
happened to get in the way and got hurt, that was all.

"Don't you see," he went on, "the whole game is a gam-
ble. Everybody gambles in one way or another. The
farmer gambles against the weather and the market on his
crops. So does the United States Steel Corporation. The
business of lots of men is straight robbery of the poor peo-
ple. But I've never made that my business. You know
that. I've always gone after the robbers."

"I missed my point," she admitted. "Wait a minute."*

And for a space they rode in silence.

"I see it more clearly than I can state it, but it's some-
thing like this. There is legitimate work, and there's work
that — well, that isn't legitimate. The farmer works the
soil and produces grain. He's making something that is
good for humanity. He actually, in a way, creates some-
thing, the grain that will fill the mouths of the hungry."

"And then the railroads and market-riggers and the rest
proceed to rob him of that same grain,"' Daylight broke in.

Dede smiled and held up her hand.

252 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"Wait a minute. You'll make me lose my point. It
doesn't hurt if they rob him of all of it so that he starves to
death. The point is that the wheat he grew is still in the
world. It exists. Don't you see? The farmer created
something, say ten tons of wheat, and those ten tons exist.
The railroads haul the wheat to market, to the mouths that
will eat it. This also is legitimate. It's like some one bring-
ing you a glass of water, or taking a cinder out of your eye.
Something has been done, in a way been created, just like
the wheat."

"But the railroads rob like Sam Scratch," Daylight
objected.

"Then the work they do is partly legitimate and partly
not. Now we come to you. You don't create anything.
Nothing new exists when you're done with your business,
Just hke the coal. You didn't dig it. You didn't haul it
to market. You didn't deliver it. Don't you see? That's
what I meant by planting the trees and building the houses.
You haven't planted one tree nor built a single house."

"I never guessed there was a woman in the world who
could talk business like that," he murmured admiringly.
"And you've got me on that point. But there's a lot to be
said on my side just the same. Now you listen to me. I'm
going to talk under three heads. Number one: We live a
short time, the best of us, and we're a long time dead. Life
is a big gambling game. Some are born lucky and some are
born unlucky. Everybody sits in at the table, and every-
body tries to rob everybody else. Most of them get robbed.
They're born suckers. A fellow like me comes along and
sizes up the proposition. I've got two choices. I can herd
with the suckers, or I can herd with the robbers. As a
sucker, I win nothing. Even the crusts of bread are
snatched out of my mouth by the robbers. I work hard all
my days, and die working. And I ain't never had a flutter.
I've had nothing but work, work. work. They talk about

BURNING DAYLIGHT 253

the dignity of labor. I tell you there ain't no dignity in that
sort of labor. My other choice is to herd with the robbers,
and I herd with them. I play that choice wide open to win.
I get the automobiles, and the porterhouse steaks, and the
soft beds.

"Number two: There ain't much difference between
playing halfway robber like the railroad hauling that farm-
er's wheat to market, and playing all robber and robbing
the robbers like I do. And, besides, halfway robbery is too
slow a game for me to sit in. You don't win quick enough
for me."

"But what do you want to win for?" Dede demanded.
"You have millions and millions, already. You can't ride
in more than one automobile at a time, sleep in more than
one bed at a time."

"Number three answers that," he said, "and here it is:
Men and things are so made that they have different likes.
A rabbit likes a vegetarian diet. A lynx likes meat. Ducks
swim; chickens are scairt of water. One man collects pos-
tage stamps, another man collects butterflies. This man
goes in for paintings, that man goes in for yachts, and
some other fellow for hunting big game. One man thinks
horse-racing is It, with a big I, and another man finds the
biggest satisfaction in actresses. They can't help these
likes. They have them, and what are they going to do
about it? Now I like gambling. I like to play the game.
I want to play it big and play it quick. I'm just made that
way. And I play it."

"But why can't you do good with all your money?"

Daylight laughed.

"Doing good with your money 1 It's Hke slapping God
in the face, as much as to tell him that he don't know how
to run his world and that you'll be much obliged if he'll
stand out of the way and give you a chance. Thinking
about God doesn't keep me sitting up nights, so I've got

2 54 BURNING DAYLIGHT

another way of looking at it. Ain't it funny, to go around
with brass knuckles and a big club breaking folks' heads
and taking their money away from them until I've got a
pile, and then, repenting of my ways, going around and
bandaging up the heads the other robbers are breaking?
I leave it to you. That's what doing good with money
amounts to. Every once in a while some robber turns soft-
hearted and takes to driving an ambulance. That's what
Carnegie did. He smashed heads in pitched battles at
Homestead, regular wholesale head-breaker he was, held
up the suckers for a few hundred million, and now he goes
around dribbling it back to them. Funny? I leave it to
you."

He rolled a cigarette and watched her half curiously,
half amusedly. His replies and harsh generalizations of a
harsh school were disconcerting, and she came back to her
earlier position.

"I can't argue with you, and you know that. No matter
how right a woman is, men have such a way about them —
well, what they say sounds most convincing, and yet the
woman is still certain they are wrong. But there is one
thing — the creative joy. Call it gambling if you will,
but just the same it seems to me more satisfying to create
something, make something, than just to roll dice out of a
dice-box all day long. Why, sometimes, for exercise, or
when I've got to pay fifteen dollars for coal, I curry Mab
and give her a whole half hour's brushing. And when I see
her coat clean and shining and satiny, I feel a satisfaction
in what I've done. So it must be with the man who builds
a house or plants a tree. He can look at it. He made it.
It's his handiwork. Even if somebody like you comes along
and takes his tree away from him, still it is there, and still
did he make it. You can't rob him of that, Mr. Harnish,
with all your millions. It's the creative joy, and it's a
higher joy than mere gambling. Haven't you ever made

BURNING DAYLIGHT 255

things yourself, — a log cabin up in the Yukon, or a canoe,
or raft, or something? And don't you remember how
satisfied you were, how good you felt, while you were doing
it and after you had it done?"

While she spoke his memory was busy with the associa-
tions she recalled. He saw the deserted flat on the river
bank by the Klondike, and he saw the log cabins and ware-
houses spring up, and all the log structures he had built,
and his sawmills working night and day on three shifts.

"Why, dog-gone it, Miss Mason, you're right — in a way.
I've built hundreds of houses up there, and I remember I
was proud and glad to see them go up. I'm proud now,
when I remember them. And there was Ophir — the most
God-forsaken moose-pasture of a creek you ever laid eyes
on. I made that into the big Ophir. Why, I ran the
water in there from the Rinkabilly, eighty miles away.
They all said I couldn't, but I did it, and I did it by myself.
The dam and the flume cost me four million. But you
should have seen that Ophir — power plants, electric lights,
and hundreds of men on the pay-roll, working night and
day. I guess I do get an inkling of what you mean by mak-
ing a thing. I made Ophir, and by God, she was a sure
hummer — I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to cuss. But
that Ophir ! — I sure am proud of her now, just as the last
time I laid eyes on her."

"And you won something there that was more than mere
money," Dede encouraged. "Now do you know what I
would do if I had lots of money and simply had to go on
playing at business? Take all the southerly and westerly
slopes of these bare hills. I'd buy them in and plant eu-
calyptus on them. I'd do it for the joy of doing it anyway;
but suppose I had that gambling twist in me which you
talk about, why, I'd do it just the same and make money
out of the trees. And there's my other point again. In-
stead of raising the price of coal without adding an ounce

256 BURNING DAYLIGHT

of coal to the market supply, I'd be making thousands and
thousands of cords of firewood — making something where
nothing was before. And everybody who ever crossed on
the ferries would look up at these forested hills and be made
glad. Who was made glad by your adding four dollars a
ton to Rock Wells?"

It was Daylight's turn to be silent for a time while she
waited an answer.

"Would you rather I did things like that?" he asked at
last.

"It would be better for the world, and better for you,"
she answered non-committally.

CHAPTER XVI

All week every one in the office knew that something
new and big was afoot in Daylight's mind. Beyond some
deals of no importance, he had not been interested in any-
thing for several months. But now he went about in an
almost unbroken brown study, made unexpected and
lengthy trips across the bay to Oakland, or sat at his desk
silent and motionless for hours. He seemed particularly
happy with what occupied his mind. At times men came in
and conferred with him — and with new faces and differing
in type from those that usually came to see him.

On Sunday Dede learned all about it.

"I've been thinking a lot of our talk," he began, "and
I've got an idea I'd Hke to give it a flutter. And I've got
a proposition to make your hair stand up. It's what you
call legitimate, and at the same time it's the gosh-dangdest
gamble a man ever went into. How about planting minutes
wholesale, and making two minutes grow where one minute
grew before? Oh, yes, and planting a few trees, too — say
several million of them. You remember the quarry I made
believe I was looking at? Well, I'm going to buy it. I'm
going to buy these hills, too, clear from here around to
Berkeley and down the other way to San Leandro. I own
a lot of them already, for that matter. But mum is the
word. I'll be buying a long time to come before anything
much is guessed about it, and I don't want the market to
jump up out of sight. You see that hill over there. It's
my hill running clear down its slopes through Piedmont and
halfway along those rolling hills into Oakland. And it's
nothing to all the things I'm going to buy."

257

258 BURNING DAYLIGHT

He paused triumphantly.

"And all to make two minutes grow where one grew
before?" Dede queried, at the same time laughing heartily
at his affectation of mystery.

He stared at her fascinated. She had such a frank, boy-
ish way of throwing her head back when she laughed. And
her teeth were an unending delight to him. Not small, yet
regular and firm, without a blemish, he considered them
the healthiest, whitest, prettiest teeth he had ever seen.
And for months he had been comparing them with the teeth
of every woman he met.

It was not until her laughter was over that he was able
to continue.

"The ferry system between Oakland and San Francisco
is the worst one-horse concern in the United States. You
cross on it every day, six days in the week. That's say,
twenty-five days a month, or three hundred a year. How
long does it take you one way? Forty minutes, if you're
lucky. I'm going to put you across in twenty minutes. If
that ain't making two minutes grow where one grew before,
knock off my head with little apples. I'll save you twenty
minutes each way. That's forty minutes a day, times three
hundred, equals twelve thousand minutes a year, just for
you, just for one person. Let's see: that's two hundred
whole hours. Suppose I save two hundred hours a year
for thousands of other folks, — that's farming some, ain't
it?"

Dede could only nod breathlessly. She had caught the
contagion of his enthusiasm, though she had no clew as to
how this great time-saving was to be accomplished.

"Come on," he said. "Let's ride up that hill, and when
1 get you out on top where you can see something, I'll talk
sense."

A small footpath dropped down to the dry bed of the
canon, which they crossed before they began the cHmb.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 259

The slope was steep and covered with matted brush and
bushes, through which the horses sHpped and lunged. Bob,
growing disgusted, turned back suddenly and attempted
to pass Mab. The mare was thrust sidewise into the denser
bush, where she nearly fell. Recovering, she flung her
weight against Bob. Both riders' legs were caught in the
consequent squeeze, and, as Bob plunged ahead down hill,
Dede was nearly scraped off. Daylight threw his horse
on to its haunches and at the same time dragged Dede back
into the saddle. Showers of twigs and leaves fell upon
them, and predicament followed predicament, until they
emerged on the hilltop the worse for wear but happy and
excited. Here no trees obstructed the view. The par-
ticular hill on which they were, out-jutted from the regular
line of the range, so that the sweep of their vision extended
over three-quarters of the circle. Below, on the flat land
bordering the bay, lay Oakland, and across the bay was San
Francisco. Between the two cities they could see the white
ferry-boats on the water. Around to their right was Berke-
ley, and to their left the scattered villages between Oakland
and San Leandro. Directly in the foreground was Pied-
mont, with its desultory dwellings and patches of farming
land, and from Piedmont the land rolled down in successive
waves upon Oakland.

"Look at it," said Daylight, extending his arm in a
sweeping gesture. "A hundred thousand people there, and
no reason there shouldn't be half a million. There's the
chance to make five people grow where one grows now.
Here's the scheme in a nutshell. Why don't more people
live in Oakland? No good service with San Francisco, and,
besides, Oakland is asleep. It's a whole lot better place to
live in than San Francisco. Now, suppose I buy in all the
street railways of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, San Lean-
dro, and the rest, — bring them under one head with a
competent management? Suppose I cut the time to San

26o BURNING DAYLIGHT

Francisco one-half by building a big pier out there almost to
Goat Island and establishing a ferry system with modern
up-to-date boats? Why, folks will want to live over on this
side. Very good. They'll need land on which to build.
So, first I buy up the land. But the land's cheap now.
Why? Because it's in the country, no electric roads, no
quick communication, nobody guessing that the electric
roads are coming. I'll build the roads. That will make
the land jump up. Then I'll sell the land as fast as the folks
will want to buy because of the improved ferry system and
transportation facilities.

"You see, I give the value to the land by building the
roads. Then I sell the land and get that value back, and
after that, there's the roads, all carrying folks back and
forth and earning big money. Can't lose. And there's all
sorts of millions in it. I'm going to get my hands on some
of that water front and the tide-lands. Take between
where I'm going to build my pier and the old pier. It's
shallow water. I can fill and dredge and put in a system
of docks that will handle hundreds of ships. San Fran-
cisco's water front is congested. No more room for ships.
With hundreds of ships loading and unloading on this side
right into the freight cars of three big railroads, factories
will start up over here instead of crossing to San Francisco.
That means factory sites. That means me buying in the
factory sites before anybody guesses the cat is going to
jump, much less, which way. Factories mean tens of thou-
sands of workingmen and their families. That means more
houses and more land, and that means me, for I'll be there
to sell them the land. And tens of thousands of families
means tens of thousands of nickels every day for my elec-
tric cars. The growing population will mean more stores,
more banks, more everything. And that'll mean me, for
I'll be right there with business property as well as home
property. What do you think of it?"

BURNING DAYLIGHT 261

Before she could answer, he was off again, his mind's
eye filled with this new city of his dream which he builded
on the Alameda hills by the gateway to the Orient.

''Do you know — I've been looking it up — the Firth
of Clyde, where all the steel ships are built, isn't half as
wide as Oakland Creek down there, where all those old
hulks lie? Why ain't it a Firth of Clyde? Because the
Oakland City Council spends its time debating about prunes
and raisins. What is needed is somebody to see things, and,
after that, organization. That's me. I didn't make Ophir
for nothing. And once things begin to hum, outside capital
will pour in. All I do is start it going. 'Gentlemen,' I say,
'here's all the natural advantages for a great metropolis.
God Almighty put them advantages here, and he put me
here to see them. Do you want to land your tea and silk
from Asia and ship it straight East? Here's the docks for
your steamers, and here's the railroads. Do you want
factories from which you can ship direct by land or water?
Here's the site, and here's the modern, up-to-date city, with
the latest improvements for yourselves and your workmen,
to live in.'

"Then there's the water. I'll come pretty close to own-
ing the watershed. Why not the waterworks too? There's
two water companies in Oakland now, fighting like cats
and dogs and both about broke. What a metropolis needs
is a good water system. They can't give it. They're stick-
in-the-muds. I'll gobble them up and deHver the right
article to the city. There's money there, too — money
everywhere. Everything works in with everything else.
Each improvement makes the value of everything else
jump up. It's people that are behind the value. The bigger
the crowd that herds in one place, the more valuable is the
real estate. And this is the very place for a crowd to herd.
Look at it. Just look at it! You could never iind a finer
site for a great city. All it needs is the herd, and I'll stam-

262 BURNING DAYLIGHT

pede a couple of hundred thousand people in here inside
two years. And what's more, it won't be one of these wild-
cat land booms. It will be legitimate. Twenty years from
now there'll be a million people on this side the bay.
Another thing is hotels. There isn't a decent one in the
town. I'll build a couple of up-to-date ones that'll make
them sit up and take notice. I won't care if they don't pay
for years. Their effect will more than give me my money
back out of the other holdings. And, oh, yes, I'm going to
plant eucalyptus, millions of them, on these hills."

"But how are you going to do it?" Dede asked. "You
haven't enough money for all that you've planned."

"I've thirty million, and if I need more I can borrow on
the land and other things. Interest on mortgages won't
anywhere near eat up the increase in land values, and I'll
be selling land right along."

In the weeks that followed, Daylight was a busy man.
He spent most of his time in Oakland, rarely coming to the
office. He planned to move the office to Oakland, but, as he
told Dede, the secret preliminary campaign of buying had
to be put through first. Sunday by Sunday, now from this
hilltop and now from that, they looked down upon the city
and its farming suburbs, and he pointed out to her his
latest acquisitions. At first it was patches and sections of
land here and there; but as the weeks passed it was the
unowned portions that became rare, until at last they stood
as islands surrounded by Daylight's land.

It meant quick work on a colossal scale, for Oakland and
the adjacent country was not slow to feel the tremendous
buying. But Daylight had the ready cash, and it had
always been his policy to strike quickly. Before the others
could get the warning of the boom, he quietly accomplished
many things. At the same time that his agents were pur-
chasing corner lots and entire blocks in the heart of the

BURNING DAYLIGHT 263

business section and the waste lands for factory sites, Day-
light was rushing franchises through the city council, cap-
turing the two exhausted water companies and the eight or
nine independent street railways, and getting his grip on
the Oakland Creek and the bay tide-lands for his dock
system. The tide-lands had been in litigation for years,
and he took the bull by the horns — buying out the private
owners and at the same time leasing from the city fathers.

By the time that Oakland was aroused by this unprece-
dented activity in every direction and was questioning ex-
citedly the meaning of it. Daylight secretly bought the chief
Republican newspaper and the chief Democratic organ, and
moved boldly into his new offices. Of necessity, they were
on a large scale, occupying four floors of the only modern
office building in the town — the only building that wouldn't
have to be torn down later on, as Dayhght put it. There
was department after department, a score of them, and hun-
dreds of clerks and stenographers. As he told Dede: —

"I've got more companies than you can shake a stick at.
There's the Alameda & Contra Costa Land Syndicate, the
Consolidated Street Railways, the Yerba Buena Ferry
Company, the United Water Company, the Piedmont
Realty Company, the Fairview and Portola Hotel Com-
pany, and half a dozen more that I've got to refer to a note-
book to remember. There's the Piedmont Laundry Farm,
and Redwood Consolidated Quarries. Starting in with
our quarry, I just kept a-going till I got them all. And
there's the ship-building company I ain't got a name for yet.
Seeing as I had to have ferry-boats, I decided to build them
myself. They'll be done by the time the pier is ready for
them. Phewl It all sure beats poker. And I've had the
fun of gouging the robber gangs as well. The water com-
pany bunches are squealing yet. I sure got them where
the hair was short. They were just about all in when I
came along and finished them off."

264 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"But why do you hate them so?" Dede asked.

"Because they're such cowardly skunks."

"But you play the same game they do."

"Yes; but not in the same way," Daylight regarded
her thoughtfully. "When I say cowardly skunks, I mean
just that, — cowardly skunks. They set up for a lot of
gamblers, and there ain't one in a thousand of them that's
got the nerve to be a gambler. They're four-flushers, if you
know what that means. They're a lot of little cottontail
rabbits making believe they're big rip-snorting timber
wolves. They set out to everlastingly eat up some propo-
sition, but at the first sign of trouble they turn tail and
stampede for the brush. Look how it works. When the
big fellows wanted to unload Little Copper, they sent
Jakey Fallow into the New York Stock Exchange to yell
out: T'll buy all or any part of Little Copper at fifty-five!'
— Little Copper being at fifty- four. And in thirty minutes
them cottontails — financiers, some folks call them — bid
up Little Copper to sixty. And an hour after that, stam-
peding for the brush, they were throwing Little Copper
overboard at forty-five and even forty.

"They're catspaws for the big fellows. Almost as fast
as they rob the suckers, the big fellows come along and
hold them up. Or else the big fellows use them in order to
rob each other. That's the way the Chattanooga Coal and
Iron Company was swallowed up by the trust in the last
panic. The trust made that panic. It had to break a couple
of big banking companies and squeeze half a dozen big
fellows, too, and it did it by stampeding the cottontails.
The cottontails did the rest all right, and the trust gathered
in Chattanooga Coal and Iron. Why, any man, with
nerve and savvee, can start them cottontails jumping for
the brush. I don't exactly hate them myself, but I haven't
any regard for chicken-hearted four-flushers."

CHAPTER XVII

For months Daylight was buried in work. The outlay
was terrific, and there was nothing coming in. Beyond a
general rise in land values, Oakland had not acknowledged
his irruption on the financial scene. The city was waiting
for him to show what he was going to do, and he lost no time
about it. The best skilled brains on the market were hired
by him for the different branches of the work. Initial mis-
takes he had no patience with, and he was determined to
start right, as when he engaged Wilkinson, almost doubhng
his big salary, and brought him out from Chicago to take
charge of the street railway organization. Night and day
the road gangs toiled on the streets. And night and day
the pile-drivers hammered the big piles down into the mud
of San Francisco Bay. The pier was to be three miles long,
and the Berkeley hills were denuded of whole groves of
mature eucaljrptus for the piling.

At the same time that his electric roads were building
out through the hills, the hay-fields were being surveyed
and broken up into city squares, with here and there, ac-
cording to best modern methods, winding boulevards and
strips of park. Broad streets, well graded, were made,
with sewers and water-pipes ready laid, and macadamized
from his own quarries. Cement sidewalks were also laid,
so that all the purchaser had to do was to select his lot and
architect and start building. The quick service of Day-
light's new electric roads into Oakland made this big dis-
trict immediately accessible, and long before the ferry sys-
tem was in operation hundreds of residences were going up.

265

266 BURNING DAYLIGHT

The profit on this land was enormous. In a day, his on-
slaught of wealth had turned open farming country into one
of the best residential districts of the city.

But this money that flowed in upon him was immediately
poured back into his other investments. The need for
electric cars was so great that he installed his own shops for
building them. And even on the rising land market, he
continued to buy choice factory sites and building proper-
ties. On the advice of Wilkinson, practically every electric
road already in operation was rebuilt. The light, old-
fashioned rails were torn out and replaced by the heaviest
that were manufactured. Corner lots, on the sharp turns of
narrow streets, were bought and ruthlessly presented to the
city in order to make wide curves for his tracks and high
speed for his cars. Then, too, there were the main-line
feeders for his ferry system, tapping every portion of Oak-
land, Alameda, and Berkeley, and running fast expresses
to the pier end. The same large-scale methods were em-
ployed in the water system. Service of the best was needed,
if his huge land investment was to succeed. Oakland had
to be made into a worth-while city, and that was what he
intended to do. In addition to his big hotels, he built
amusement parks for the common people, and art galleries
and club-house country inns for the more finicky classes.
Even before there was any increase in population, a marked
increase in street-railway traffic took place. There was
nothing fanciful about his schemes. They were sound
investments.

"What Oakland wants is a first-class theatre," he said,
and, after vainly trying to interest local capital, he started
the building of the theatre himself; for he alone had vision
for the two hundred thousand new people that were coming
to the town.

But no matter what pressure was on Daylight, his Sun-
days he reserved for his riding in the hills. It was not the

BURNING DAYLIGHT 267

rainy winter weather, however, that brought these rides
with Dede to an end. One Saturday afternoon in the office
she told him not to expect to meet her next day, and, when
he pressed for an explanation: —

"I've sold Mab."

Daylight was speechless for the moment. Her act meant
one of so many serious things that he couldn't classify it.
It smacked almost of treachery. She might have met with
financial disaster. It might be her way of letting him know
she had seen enough of him. Or . . .

"What's the matter?" he managed to ask.

"I couldn't afford to keep her with hay forty-five dollars
a ton," Dede answered.

"Was that your only reason?" he demanded, looking at
her steadily; for he remembered her once teUing him how
she had brought the mare through one winter, five years
before, when hay had gone as high as sixty dollars a ton.

"No. My brother's expenses have been higher, as well,
and I was driven to the conclusion that since I could not
afford both, I'd better let the mare go and keep the
brother."

Daylight felt inexpressibly saddened. He was suddenly
aware of a great emptiness. What would a Sunday be
without Dede? And Sundays without end without her?
He drummed perplexedly on the desk with his fingers.

"Who bought her?" he asked.

Dede's eyes flashed in the way long since familiar to
him when she was angry.

"Don't you dare buy her back for me," she cried. "And
don't deny that that was what you had in mind."

"No, I won't deny it. It was my idea to a tee. But I
wouldn't have done it without asking you first, and seeing
how you feel about it, I won't even ask you. But you
thought a heap of that mare, and it's pretty hard on you to
lose her. I'm sure sorry. And I'm sorry, too, that you

268 BURNING DAYLIGHT

won't be riding with me to-morrow. I'll be plumb lost. I
won't know what to do with myself."

''Neither shall I," Dede confessed mournfully, except
that I shall be able to catch up with my sewing."

''But I haven't any sewing."

Daylight's tone was whimsically plaintive, but secretly he
was delighted with her confession of loneliness. It was al-
most worth the loss of the mare to get that out of her. At
any rate, he meant something to her. He was not utterly
unliked.

"I wish you would reconsider. Miss Mason," he said
softly. "Not alone for the mare's sake, but for my sake.
Money don't cut any ice in this. For me to buy that mare
wouldn't mean as much as it does to most men to send a
bouquet of flowers or a box of candy to a young lady. And
I've never sent you flowers or candy." He observed the
warning flash of her eyes, and hurried on to escape refusal.
"I'll tell you what we'll do. Suppose I buy the mare and
own her myself, and lend her to you when you want to ride.
There's nothing wrong in that. Anybody borrows a horse
from anybody, you know."

Again he saw refusal, and headed her off.

"Lots of men take women buggy-riding. There's noth-
ing wrong in that. And the man always furnishes the horse
and buggy. Well, now, what's the difference between my
taking you buggy-riding to-morrow and furnishing the
horse and buggy, and taking you horseback-riding and
furnishing the horses?"

She shook her head, and declined to answer, at the same
time looking at the door as if to intimate that it was time
for this unbusinesslike conversation to end. He made one
more effort.

"Do you know, Miss Mason, I haven't a friend in the
world outside you? I mean a real friend, man or woman,
the kind you chum with, you know, that you're glad to be

BURNING DAYLIGHT 269

with and sorry to be away from. Hegan is the nearest man
I get to, and he's a million miles away from me. Outside
business, we don't hitch. He's got a big library of books,
and some crazy kind of culture, and he spends all his off
time reading things in French and German and other out-
landish lingoes — when he ain't writing plays and poetry.
There's nobody I feel chummy with except you, and you
know how little we've chummed — once a week, if it didn't
rain, on Sunday. I've grown kind of to depend on you.
You're a sort of — of — of — "

"A sort of habit," she said with a smile.

"That's about it. And that mare, and you astride of her,
coming along the road under the trees or through the sun-
shine — why, with both you and the mare missing, there
won't be anything worth waiting through the week for. If
you'd just let me buy her back — "

"No, no; I tell you no." Dede arose impatiently, but her
eyes were moist with memory of her pet. "Please don't
mention her to me again. If you think it was easy to part
with her, you are mistaken. But I've seen the last of her,
and I want to forget her."

Daylight made no answer, and the door closed behind her.

Half an hour later he was conferring with Jones, the erst-
while elevator boy and rabid proletarian whom Daylight
long before had grubstaked to literature for a year. The
resulting novel had been a failure. Editors and publishers
would not look at it, and Daylight was now using the dis-
gruntled author in a little private secret service system he
had been compelled to establish for himself. Jones, who
affected to be surprised at nothing after his crushing ex-
perience with railroad freight rates on fire-wood and char-
coal, betrayed no surprise now when the task was given him
to locate the purchaser of a certain sorrel mare.

"How high shall I pay for her?" he asked.

"Any price. You've got to get her, that's the point.

2 70 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Drive a sharp bargain so as not to excite suspicion, but get
her. Then you deliver her to that address up in Sonoma
County. The man's the caretaker on a little ranch I have
there. Tell him he's to take whacking good care of her. And
after that forget all about it. Don't tell me the name of the
man you buy her from. Don't tell me anything about it
except that you've got her and delivered her. Savvee?"

But the week had not passed, when Daylight noted the
flash in Dede's eyes that boded trouble.

"Something's gone wrong — what is it?" he asked
boldly.

"Mab," she said. "The man who bought her has sold her
already. If I thought you had anything to do with it — "

"I don't even know who you sold her to," was Daylight's
answer. "And what's more, I'm not bothering my head
about her. She was your mare, and it's none of my business
what you did with her. You haven't got her, that's sure,
and worse luck. And now, while we're on touchy subjects,
I'm going to open another one with you. And you needn't
get touchy about it, for it's not really your business at all."

She waited in the pause that followed, eyeing him almost
suspiciously.

"It's about that brother of yours. He needs more than
you can do for him. Selling that mare of yours won't send
him to Germany. And that's what his own doctors say he
needs — that crack German specialist who rips a man's
bones and muscles into pulp and then moulds them all over
again. Well, I want to send him to Germany and give that
crack a flutter, that's all."

"If it were only possible!" she said, half breathlessly,
and wholly without anger. "Only it isn't, and you know it
isn't. I can't accept money from you — "

"Hold on, now," he interrupted. "Wouldn't you accept
a drink of water from one of the Twelve Apostles if you
was dying of thirst? Or would you be afraid of his evil

BURNrNG DAYLIGHT 27I

intentions — " She made a gesture of dissent " — or of
what folks might say about it?"

"But that's different," she began.

"Now look here, Miss Mason. You've got to get some
foolish notions out of your head. This money notion is one
of the funniest things I've seen. Suppose you was falling
over a cliff, wouldn't it be all right for me to reach out and
catch you by the arm? Sure it would. But suppose you
needed another sort of help — instead of the strength of
my arm, the strength of my pocket? That would be all
wrong. That's what they all say. But why do they say
it? Because the robber gangs want all the suckers to be
honest and respect money. If the suckers weren't honest
and didn't respect money, where would the robbers be?
Don't you see? The robbers don't deal in arm-holds; they
deal in dollars. Therefore arm-holds are just common and
ordinary, while dollars are sacred — so sacred that you
dassent let me lend you a hand with a few.

"Or here's another way," he continued, spurred on by her
mute protest. "It's all right for me to give the strength of
my arm when you're falling over a cliff. But if I take that
same strength of arm and use it at pick-apd-shovel work
for a day and earn two dollars, you won't have anything
to do with the two dollars. Yet it's the same old strength
of arm in a new form, that's all. Besides, in this proposi-
tion it won't be a claim on you. It ain't even a loan to you.
It's an arm-hold I'm giving your brother — just the same
sort of arm-hold as if he was falling over a cliff. And a nice
one you are, to come running out and yell 'Stop! ' at me, and
let your brother go on over the cliff. What he- needs to save
his legs is that crack in Germany, and that's the arm-hold
I'm offering,

"Wish you could see my rooms. Walls all decorated with
horsehair bridles — scores of them — hundreds of them.
They're no use to me, and they cost like Sam Scratch. But

2 72 BURNING DAYLIGHT

there's a lot of convicts making them, and I go on buying.
Why, I've spent more money in a single night on whiskey
than would get the best specialists and pay all the expenses
of a dozen cases like your brother's. And remember, you've
got nothing to do with this. If your brother wants to look
on it as a loan, all right. It's up to him, and you've got to
stand out of the way while I pull him back from that cliff."

Still Dede refused, and Daylight's argument took a more
painful turn.

"I can only guess that you're standing in your brother's
way on account of some mistaken idea in your head that
this is my idea of courting. Well, it ain't. You might as
well think I'm courting all those convicts I buy bridles from.
I haven't asked you to marry me, and if I do I won't come
trying to buy you into consenting. And there won't be
anything underhand when I come a-asking."

Dede's face was flushed and angry.

"If you knew how ridiculous you are, you'd stop," she
blurted out. "You can make me more uncomfortable than
any man I ever knew. Every little while you give me to
understand that you haven't asked me to marry you yet.
I'm not waiting to be asked, and I warned you from the first
that you had no chance. And yet you hold it over my head
that some time, some day, you're going to ask me to marry
you. Go ahead and ask me now, and get your answer and
get it over and done with."

He looked at her in honest and pondering admiration.

"I want you so bad. Miss Mason, that I don't dast to ask
you now," he said, with such whimsicality and earnestness
as to make her throw her head back in a frank boyish laugh.
"Besides, as I told you, I'm green at it. I never went
a-courting before, and I don't want to make any mistakes."

"But you're making them all the time," she cried impul-
sively. "No man ever courted a woman by holding a threat-
ened proposal over her head like a club."

BURNING DAYLIGHT 273

"I won't do it any more," he said humbly. "And any-
way, we're off the argument. My straight talk a minute ago
still holds. You're standing in your brother's way. No
matter what notions you've got in your head, you've got to
get out of the way and give him a chance. Will you let me
go and see him and talk it over with him? I'll make it a
hard and fast business proposition. I'll stake him to get
well, that's all, and charge him interest."

She visibly hesitated.

"And just remember one thing, Miss Mason: it's his leg,
not yours."

Still she refrained from giving her answer, and DayHght
went on strengthening his position.

"And remember, I go over to see him alone. He's a
man, and I can deal with him better without womenfolks
around. I'll go over to-morrow afternoon."

CHAPTER XVIII

Daylight had been wholly truthful when he told Dede
that he had no real friends. On speaking terms with thou-
sands, on fellowship and drinking terms with hundreds, he
was a lonely man. He failed to find the one man, or group of
several men, with whom he could be really intimate. Cities
did not make for comradeship as did the Alaskan trail.
Besides, the t>T3es of men were different. Scornful and
contemptuous of business men on the one hand, on the
other his relations with the San Francisco bosses had been
more an alliance of expediency than anything else. He had
felt more of kinship for the franker brutality of the bosses
and their captains, but they had failed to claim any deep
respect. They were too prone to crookedness. Bonds were
better than men's word in this modern world, and one had to
look carefully to the bonds. In the old Yukon days it had
been different. Bonds didn't go. A man said he had so much,
and even in a poker game his appraisement was accepted.

Larry Hegan, who rose ably to the largest demands of
Daylight's operations and who had few illusions and less
hypocrisy, might have proved a chum had it not been for
his temperamental twist. Strange genius that he was, a
Napoleon of the law, with a power of visioning that far
exceeded Daylight's, he had nothing in common with Day-
light outside the office. He spent his time with books, a
thing Daylight could not abide. Also, he devoted himself to
the endless writing of plays which never got beyond manu-
script form, and, though Daylight only sensed the secret
taint of it, was a confirmed but temperate eater of hasheesh.

274

BURNING DAYLIGHT 275

Hegan lived all his life cloistered with books in a world of
imagination. With the out-of-door world he had no under-
standing nor tolerance. In food and drink he was abstem-
ious as a monk, while exercise was a thing abhorrent.

Daylight's friendships, in Heu of anything closer, were
drinking friendships and roistering friendships. And with
the passing of the Sunday rides with Dede, he fell back
more and more upon these for diversion. The cocktail wall
of inhibition he reared more assiduously than ever. The big
red motor-car was out more frequently now, while a stable
hand was hired to give Bob exercise. In his early San Fran-
cisco days, there had been intervals of easement between his
deals, but in this present biggest deal of all the strain was
unremitting. Not in a month, or two, or three, could his
huge land investment be carried to a successful consumma-
tion. And so complex and wide-reaching was it that com-
phcations and knotty situations constantly arose. Every
day brought its problems, and when he had solved them in
his masterful way, he left the office in his big car, almost
sighing with relief at anticipation of the approaching double
Martini. Rarely was he made tipsy. His constitution was
too strong for that. Instead, he was that direst of all drink-
ers, the steady drinker, dehberate and controlled, who
averaged a far higher quantity of alcohol than the irregu-
lar and violent drinker.

For six weeks hand-running he had seen nothing of Dede
except in the office, and there he resolutely refrained from
making approaches. But by the seventh Sunday his hun-
ger for her overmastered him. It was a stormy day. A
heavy southeast gale was blowing, and squall after squall
of rain and wind swept over the city. He could not take his
mind off of her, and a persistent picture came to him of her
sitting by a window and sewing feminine fripperies of some
sort. When the time came for his first pre-luncheon cock-
tail to be served to him in his rooms, he did not take it.

276 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Filled with a daring determination, he glanced at his note-
book for Dede's telephone number, and called for the
switch.

At first it was her landlady's daughter who was raised,
but in a minute he heard the voice he had been hungry to
hear.

"I just wanted to tell you that I'm coming out to see
you," he said. "I didn't want to break in on you without
warning, that was all."

"Has something happened?" came her voice.

"I'll tell you when I get there," he evaded.

He left the red car two blocks away and arrived on foot
at the pretty, three-storied, shingled Berkeley house. For
an instant only, he was aware of an inward hesitancy, but
the next moment he rang the bell. He knew that what he
was doing was in direct violation of her wishes, and that
he was setting her a difficult task to receive as a Sunday
caller the multimillionaire and notorious Elam Harnish of
newspaper fame. On the other hand, the one thing he did
not expect of her was what he would have termed "silly
female capers."

And in this he was not disappointed.

She came herself to the door to receive him and shake
hands with him. He hung his mackintosh and hat on the
rack in the comfortable square hall and turned to her for
direction.

"They are busy in there," she said, indicating the parlor,
from which came the boisterous voices of young people,
and through the open door of which he could see several
college youths. "So you will have to come into my rooms."

She led the way through the door opening out of the hall
to the right, and, once inside, he stood awkwardly rooted to
the floor, gazing about him and at her and all the time try-
ing not to gaze. In his perturbation he failed to hear and

BURNING DAYLIGHT 277

see her invitation to a seat. So these were her quarters.
The intimacy of it and her making no fuss about it was
startling, but it was no more than he would have expected
of her. It was almost two rooms in one, the one he was in
evidently the sitting-room, and the one he could see into, the
bedroom. Beyond an oaken dressing-table, with an orderly
litter of combs and brushes and dainty feminine knick-
knacks, there was no sign of its being used as a bedroom.
The broad couch, with a cover of old rose and banked high
with cushions, he decided must be the bed, but it was farth-
est from any experience of a civilized bed he had ever had.

Not that he saw much of detail in that awkward moment
of standing. His general impression was one of warmth and
comfort and beauty. There were no carpets, and on the
hardwood floor he caught a glimpse of several wolf and
coyote skins. What captured and perceptibly held his eye
for a moment was a Crouched Venus that stood on a Stein-
way upright against a background of mountain-Hon skin on
the wall.

But it was Dede herself that smote most sharply upon
sense and perception. He had always cherished the idea
that she was very much a woman — the lines of her figure,
her hair, her eyes, her voice, and birdlike laughing ways
had all contributed to this; but here, in her own rooms, clad
in some flowing, clinging gown, the emphasis of sex was
startling. He had been accustomed to her only in trim
tailor suits and shirtwaists, or in riding costume of velvet
corduroy, and he was not prepared for this new revelation.
She seemed so much softer, so much more pliant, and ten-
der, and lissome. She was a part of this atmosphere of
quietude and beauty. She fitted into it just as she had
fitted in with the sober office furnishings.

"Won't you sit down?" she repeated.

He felt like an animal long denied food. His hunger for
her welled up in him, and he proceeded to "wolf" the dainty

278 BURNING DAYLIGHT

morsel before him. Here was no patience, no diplomacy.
The straightest, directest way was none too quick for him,
and, had he known it, the least unsuccessful way he could
have chosen.

"Look here," he said, in a voice that shook with passion,
"there's one thing I won't do, and that's propose to you in
the office. That's why I'm here. Dede Mason, I want you,
I just want you."

While he spoke he advanced upon her, his black eyes
burning with bright fire, his aroused blood swarthy in his
cheek.

So precipitate was he, that she had barely time to cry out
her involuntary alarm and to step back, at the same time
catching one of his hands as he attempted to gather her into
his arms.

In contrast to him, the blood had suddenly left her cheeks.
The hand that had warded his off and that still held it, was
trembling. She relaxed her fingers, and his arm dropped to
his side. She wanted to say something, do something, to
pass on from the awkwardness of the situation, but no intel-
ligent thought nor action came into her mind. She was
aware only of a desire to laugh. This impulse was partly
hysterical and partly spontaneous humor — the latter grow-
ing from instant to instant. Amazing as the affair was, the
ridiculous side of it was not veiled to her. She felt like one
who had suffered the terror of the onslaught of a murderous
footpad only to find out that it was an innocent pedestrian
asking the time.

Daylight was the quicker to achieve action.

"Oh, I know I'm a sure enough fool," he said. "I — I
guess I'll sit down. Don't be scairt. Miss Mason. I'm not
real dangerous."

"I'm not afraid," she answered, with a smile, slipping
down herself into a chair, beside which, on the floor, stood
a sewing-basket from which, Daylight noted, some white

BURNING DAYLIGHT 279

fluffy thing of lace and muslin overflowed. Again she
smiled. "Though I confess you did — startle me for the
moment."

"It's funny," Daylight sighed, almost with regret; "here
I am, strong enough to bend you around and tie knots in
you. Here I am, used to having my will with man and
beast and anything. And here I am sitting in this chair,
as weak and helpless as a little lamb. You sure take the
starch out of me."

Dede vainly cudgelled her brains in quest of a reply to
these remarks. Instead, her thought dwelt insistently upon
the significance of his stepping aside, in the middle of a vio-
lent proposal, in order to make irrelevant remarks. What
struck her was the man's certitude. So little did he doubt
that he would have her, that he could afford to pause and
generalize upon love and the effects of love.

She noted his hand unconsciously slipping in the familiar
way into the side coat pocket where she knew he carried his
tobacco and brown papers.

"You may smoke, if you want to," she said.

He withdrew his hand with a jerk, as if something in the
pocket had stung him.

"No, I wasn't thinking of smoking. I was thinking of
you. WTiat's a man to do when he wants a woman but ask
her to marry him? That's all that I'm doing. I can't do
it in style. I know that. But I can use straight English,
and that's good enough for me. I sure want you mighty
bad, Miss Mason. You're in my mind 'most all the time,
now. And what I want to know is — well, do you want me?
That's all."

"I — I wish you hadn't asked," she said softly.

"Mebbe it's best you should know a few things before
you give me an answer," he went on, ignoring the fact that
the answer had already been given. "I never went after
a woman before in my life, all reports to the contrary not-

280 BURNING DAYLIGHT

withstanding. The stuff you read about me in the papers
and books, about me being a lady-killer, is all wrong.
There's not an iota of truth in it. I guess I've done more
than my share of card-playing and whiskey-drinking, but
women I've let alone. There was a woman that killed her-
self, but I didn't know she wanted me that bad or else I'd
have married her — not for love, but to keep her from kill-
ing herself. She was the best of the boiling, but I never gave
her any encouragement. I'm telling you all this because
you've read about it, and I want you to get it straight from
me.

"Lady-killer!" he snorted. "Why, Miss Mason, I don't
mind telling you that I've sure been scairt of women all my
life. You're the first one I've not been afraid of. That's
the strange thing about it. I just plumb worship you, and
yet I'm not afraid of you. Mebbe it's because you're dif-
ferent from the women I know. You've never chased me.
— Lady-killer ! Why, I've been running away from ladies
ever since I can remember, and I guess all that saved me
was that I was strong in the wind and that I never fell down
and broke a leg or anything.

'T didn't ever want to get married until after I met you,
and until a long time after I met you. I cottoned to you
from the start; but I never thought it would get as bad as
marriage. Why, I can't get to sleep nights, thinking of
you and wanting you."

He came to a stop and waited. She had taken the lace
and muslin from the basket, possibly to settle her nerves
and wits, and was sewing upon it. As she was not looking
at him, he devoured her with his eyes. He noted the firm,
efficient hands — hands that could control a horse hke Bob,
that could run a typewriter almost as fast as a man could
talk, that could sew on dainty garments, and that, doubt-
lessly, could play on the piano over there in the corner.
Another ultra-feminine detail he noticed — her slippers.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 28l

They were small and bronze. He had never imagined she
had such a small foot. Street shoes and riding boots were
all that he had ever seen on her feet, and they had given no
advertisement of this. The bronze slippers fascinated him,
and to them his eyes repeatedly turned.

A knock came at the door, which she answered. Day-
light could not help hearing the conversation. She was
wanted at the telephone.

"Tell him to call up again in ten minutes," he heard her
say, and the masculine pronoun caused in him a flashing
twinge of jealousy. Well, he decided, whoever it was,
Burning Daylight would give him a run for his money.
The marvel to him was that a girl like Dede hadn't been
married long since.

She came back, smiling to him, and resumed her sewing.
His eyes wandered from the efficient hands to the bronze
slippers and back again, and he swore to himself that there
were mighty few stenographers like her in existence. That
was because she must have come of pretty good stock, and
had a pretty good raising. Nothing else could explain these
rooms of hers and the clothes she wore and the way she
wore them.

"Those ten minutes are flying," he suggested.

"I can't marry you," she said.

"You don't love me?"

She shook her head.

"Do you like me — the Httlest bit?"

This time she nodded, at the same time allowing the smile
of amusement to play on her lips. But it was amusement
without contempt. The humorous side of a situation rarely
appealed in vain to her.

"Well, that's something to go on," he announced.
"You've got to make a start to get started. I just liked you
at first, and look what it's grown into. You recollect, you
said you didn't like my way of life. Well, I've changed it a

282 BURNING DAYLIGHT

heap. I ain't gambling like I used to. I've gone into what
you called the legitimate, making two minutes grow where
one grew before, three hundred thousand folks where only
a hundred thousand grew before. And this time next year
there'll be two million eucalyptus growing on the hills. Say,
do you like me more than the littlest bit?"

She raised her eyes from her work and looked at him as
she answered: —

"I like you a great deal, but — "

He waited a moment for her to complete the sentence,
faihng which, he went on himself.

"I haven't an exaggerated opinion of myself, so I know I
ain't bragging when I say I'll make a pretty good husband.
You'd find I was no hand at nagging and fault-finding. I
can guess what it must be for a woman like you to be in-
dependent. Well, you'd be independent as my wife. No
strings on you. You could follow your own sweet will, and
nothing would be too good for you. I'd give you everything
your heart desired — "

"Except yourself," she interrupted suddenly, almost
sharply.

Daylight's astonishment was momentary.

"I don't know about that. I'd be straight and square,
and live true. I don't hanker after divided affections."

"I don't mean that," she said. "Instead of giving your-
self to your wife, you would give yourself to the three
hundred thousand people of Oakland, to your street rail-
ways and ferry-routes, to the two million trees on the hills
— to everything business — and — and to all that that
means."

"I'd see that I didn't," he declared stoutly. "I'd be
yours to command — "

"You think so, but it would turn out differently." She
suddenly became nervous. "We must stop this talk. It
is too much Hke attempting to drive a bargain. 'How

BURNING DAYLIGHT 283

much will you give?' 'I'll give so much.' 'I want more,'
and all that. I like you, but not enough to marry you, and
I'll never like you enough to marry you."

"How do you know that?" he demanded.

"Because I like you less and less."

Daylight sat dumfounded. The hurt showed itself
plainly in his face.

"Oh, you don't understand," she cried wildly, beginning
to lose self-control. "It's not that way I mean. I do like
you; the more I've known you the more I've liked you.
And at the same time the more I've known you the less
would I care to marry you."

This enigmatic utterance completed Daylight's perplexity.

"Don't you see?" she hurried on. "I could have far
easier married the Elam Harnish fresh from Klondike,
when I first laid eyes on him long ago, than marry you sit-
ting before me now."

He shook his head slowly.

"That's one too many for me. The more you know and
like a man the less you want to marry him. Familiarity
breeds contempt — I guess that's what you mean."

"No, no," she cried, but before she could continue, a
knock came on the door.

"The ten minutes is up," Daylight said.

His eyes, quick with observation like an Indian's, darted
about the room while she was out. The impression of
warmth and comfort and beauty predominated, though he
was unable to analyze it; while the simplicity delighted
him — expensive simplicity, he decided, and most of it
leftovers from the time her father went broke and died.
He had never before appreciated a plain hardwood floor
with a couple of wolfskins; it sure beat all the carpets in
creation. He stared solemnly at a bookcase containing a
couple of hundred books. There was mystery. He could
not understand what people found so much tp write about.

284 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Writing things and reading things were not the same as
doing things, and himself primarily a man of action, doing
things was alone comprehensible.

His gaze passed on from the Crouched Venus to a little
tea-table with all its fragile and exquisite accessories, and
to a shining copper kettle and copper chafing-dish. Chafing-
dishes were not unknown to him, and he wondered if she
concocted suppers on this one for some of those Univer-
sity young men he had heard whispers about. One or two
water-colors on the wall made him conjecture that she had
painted them herself. There were photographs of horses
and of old masters, and the trailing purple of a Burial of
Christ held him for a time. But ever his gaze returned to
that Crouched Venus on the piano. To his homely, frontier-
trained mind, it seemed curious that a nice young woman
should have such a bold, if not sinful, object on display in
her own room. But he reconciled himself to it by an act
of faith. Since it was Dede, it must be eminently all right.
Evidently such things went along with culture. Larry
Hegan had similar casts and photographs in his book-clut-
tered quarters. But then, Larry Hegan was different.
There was that hint of unhealth about him that Daylight
invariably sensed in his presence, while Dede, on the con-
trary, seemed always so robustly wholesome, radiating an
atmosphere compounded of the sun and wind and dust of
the open road. And yet, if such a clean, healthy woman as
she went in for naked women crouching on her piano, it
must be all right. Dede made it all right. She could come
pretty close to making anything all right. Besides, he
didn't understand culture anj^way.

She reentered the room, and as she crossed it to her chair,
he admired the way she walked, while the bronze slippers
were maddening.

"I'd like to ask you several questions," he began im-

BURNING DAYLIGHT 285

mediately. "Are you thinking of marrying somebody
else?"

She laughed merrily and shook her head.

"Do you like anybody else more than you like me? —
that man at the 'phone just now, for instance?"

"There isn't anybody else. I don't know anybody I
like well enough to marry. For that matter, I don't think
I am a marrying woman. Office work seems to spoil one
for that."

Daylight ran his eyes over her, from her face to the tip
of a bronze slipper, in a way that made the color mantle
in her cheeks. At the same time he shook his head scep-
tically.

"It strikes me that you're the most marryingest woman
that ever made a man sit up and take notice. And now
another question. You see, I've just got to locate the lay
of the land. Is there anybody you like as much as you
like me?"

But Dede had herself well in hand.

"That's unfair," she said. "And if you stop and consider,
you will find that you are doing the very thing you dis-
claimed — namely, nagging. I refuse to answer any more
of your questions. Let us talk about other things. How
is Bob?"

Half an hour later, whirling along through the rain on
Telegraph Avenue toward Oakland, Daylight smoked one
of his brown-paper cigarettes and reviewed what had taken
place. It was not at all bad, was his summing up, though
there was much about it that was baffling. There was that
liking him the more she knew him and at the same time
wanting to marry him less. That was a puzzler.

But the fact that she had refused him carried with it
a certain elation. In refusing him she had refused his
thirty million dollars. That was going some for a ninety-

286 BURNING DAYLIGHT

doUar-a-month stenographer who had known better times.
She wasn't after money, that was patent. Every woman
he had encountered had seemed willing to swallow him
down for the sake of his money. Why, he had doubled his
fortune, made fifteen millions, since the day she first came
to work for him, and behold, any willingness to marry him
she might have possessed had diminished as his money had
increased.

"Gosh!" he muttered. "If I clean up a hundred million
on this land deal she won't even be on speaking terms with
me."

But he could not smile the thing away. It remained to
baffle him, that enigmatic statement of hers that she could
more easily have married the Elam Harnish fresh from the
Klondike than the present Elam Harnish. Well, he con-
cluded, the thing to do was for him to become more like
that old-time Daylight who had come down out of the
North to try his luck at the bigger game. But that was
impossible. He could not set back the flight of time.
Wishing wouldn't do it, and there was no other way. He
might as well wish himself a boy again.

Another satisfaction he cuddled to himself from their
interview. He had heard of stenographers before, who
refused their employers, and who invariably quit their posi-
tions immediately afterward. But Dede had not even
hinted at such a thing. No matter how baffling she was,
there was no nonsensical silliness about her. She was level-
headed. But, also, he had been level-headed and was partly
responsible for this. He hadn't taken advantage of her in
the office. True, he had twice overstepped the bounds, but
he had not followed it up and made a practice of it. She
knew she could trust him. But in spite of all this he was
confident that most young women would have been silly
enough to resign a position with a man they had turned
(down. And besides, after he had put it to her in the right

BURNING DAYLIGHT 287

light, she had not been silly over his sending her brother to
Germany.

"Gee! " he concluded, as the car drew up before his hotel.
"If I'd only known it as I do now, I'd have popped the
question the first day she came to work. According to her
say-so, that would have been the proper moment. She
likes me more and more, and the more she likes me the less
she'd care to marry me! Now what do you think of that?
She sure must be fooling."

CHAPTER XIX

Once again, on a rainy Sunday, weeks afterward, Day-
light proposed to Dede. As on the first time, he restrained
himself until his hunger for her overwhelmed him and
swept him away in his red automobile to Berkeley. He
left the machine several blocks away and proceeded to the
house on foot. But Dede was out, the landlady's daughter
told him, and added, on second thought, that she was out
walking in the hills. Furthermore, the young lady directed
him where Dede's walk was most likely to extend.

Daylight obeyed the girl's instructions, and soon the
street he followed passed the last house and itself ceased
where began the first steep slopes of the open hills. The air
was damp with the on-coming of rain, for the storm had not
yet burst, though the rising wind proclaimed its imminence.
As far as he could see, there was no sign of Dede on the
smooth, grassy hills. To the right, dipping down into a
hollow and rising again, was a large, full-grown eucalyptus
grove. Here all was noise and movement, the lofty, slender-
trunked trees swaying back and forth in the wind and clash-
ing their branches together. In the squalls, above all the
minor noises of creaking and groaning, arose a deep thrum-
ming note as of a mighty harp. Knowing Dede as he did,
Daylight was confident that he would find her somewhere
in this grove where the storm effects were so pronounced.
And find her he did, across the hollow and on the exposed
crest of the opposing slope where the gale smote its fiercest
blows.

There was something monotonous, though not tiresome,
about the way Daylight proposed. Guiltless of diplomacy

288

BURNING DAYLIGHT 289

or subterfuge, he was as direct and gusty as the gale itself.
He had time neither for greeting nor apology.

"It's the same old thing," he said. "I want you and I've
come for you. You've just got to have me, Dede, for the
more I think about it the more certain I am that you've got
a sneaking liking for me that's something more than just
ordinary liking. And you don't dast say that it isn't; now
dast you?"

He had shaken hands with her at the moment he began
speaking, and he had continued to hold her hand. Now,
when she did not answer, she felt a light but firmly insistent
pressure as of his drawing her to him. Involuntarily, she
half-yielded to him, her desire for the moment stronger than
her will. Then suddenly she drew herself away, though
permitting her hand still to remain in his.

"You sure ain't afraid of me?" he asked, with quick
compunction.

"No." She smiled wofuUy. "Not of you, but of my-
self."

"You haven't taken my dare," he urged under this en-
couragement.

"Please, please," she begged. "We can never marry,
so don't let us discuss it."

"Then I copper your bet to lose." He was almost gay,
now, for success was coming faster than his fondest imagin-
ing. She liked him, without a doubt; and without a doubt
she liked him well enough to let him hold her hand, well
enough to be not repelled by the nearness of him.

She shook her head.

"No, it is impossible. You would lose your bet."

For the first time a dark suspicion crossed Daylight's
mind — a clew that explained everything.

"Say, you ain't been let in for some one of these secret
marriages have you?"

The consternation in his voice and on his face was too

290 BURNING DAYLIGHT

much for her, and her laugh rang out, merry and spon-
taneous as a burst of joy from the throat of a bird.

Daylight knew his answer, and, vexed with himself,
decided that action was more efficient than speech. So he
stepped between her and the wind and drew her so that she
stood close in the shelter of him. An unusually stiff squall
blew about them and thrummed overhead in the tree-tops,
and both paused to listen. A shower of flying leaves en-
veloped them, and hard on the heel of the wind came driv-
ing drops of rain. He looked down on her and on her hair,
wind-blown about her face; and because of her closeness
to him and of a fresher and more poignant realization of
what she meant to him, he trembled so that she was aware
of it in the hand that held hers.

She suddenly leaned against him, bowing her head until
it rested lightly upon his breast. And so they stood while
another squall, with flying leaves and scattered drops of
rain, rattled past. With equal suddenness she lifted her
head and looked at him.

"Do you know," she said, "I prayed last night about you.
I prayed that you would fail, that you would lose every-
thing — everything."

Daylight stared his amazement at this cryptic utterance.

"That sure beats me. I always said I got out of my
depth with women, and you've got me out of my depth now.
Why you want me to lose everything, seeing as you like
me—"

"I never said so."

"You didn't dast say you didn't. So, as I was sajring:
liking me, why you'd want me to go broke is clean beyond
my simple understanding. It's right in line with that other
puzzler of yours, the more-you-like-me-the-less-you-want-to
marry-me one. Well, you've just got to explain, that's all."

His arms went around her and held her closely, and this
time she did not resist. Her head was bowed, and he

BURNING DAYLIGHT 29I

could not see her face, yet he had a premonition that she
was crying. He had learned the virtue of silence, and he
waited her will in the matter. Things had come to such a
pass that she was bound to tell him something now. Of that
he was confident.

"I am not romantic," she began, again looking at him as
she spoke. "It might be better for me if I were. Then
I could make a fool of myself and be unhappy for the rest
of my life. But my abominable common sense prevents.
And that doesn't make me a bit happier, either."

"I'm still out of my depth and swimming feeble," Day-
light said, after waiting vainly for her to go on. "You've
got to show me, and you ain't shown me yet. Your com-
mon sense and praying that I'd go broke is all up in the air
to me. Little woman, I just love you mighty hard, and I
want you to marry me. That's straight and simple and
right off the bat. Will you marry me?"

She shook her head slowly, and then, as she talked,
seemed to grow angry, sadly angry; and Daylight knew that
this anger was against him.

"Then let me explain, and just as straight and simply
as you have asked." She paused, as if casting about for
a beginning. "You are honest and straightforward. Do
you want me to be honest and straightforward as a woman
is not supposed to be? — to tell you things that will hurt
you? — to make confessions that ought to shame me? —
to behave in what many men would think was an unwom-
anly manner?"

The arm around her shoulder pressed encouragement,
but he did not speak.

"I would dearly like to marry you, but I am afraid.
I am proud and humble at the same time that a man like
you should care for me. But you have too much money.
There's where my abominable common sense steps in. Even
if we did marry, you could never be my man — my lover

292 BURNING DAYLIGHT

and my husband. You would be your money's man. I
know I am a foolish woman, but I want my man for my-
self. You would not be free for me. Your money possesses
you, taking your time, your thoughts, your energy, every-
thing, bidding you go here and go there, do this and do
that. Don't you see? Perhaps it's pure silliness, but I
feel that I can love much, give much — give all ; and in
return, though I don't want all, I want much — and I want
much more than your money would permit you to give me.

"And your money destroys you; it makes you less and
less nice. I am not ashamed to say that I love you, because
I shall never marry you. And I loved you much when I
did not know you at all, when you first came down from
Alaska and I first went into the office. You were my hero.
You were the Burning Daylight of the gold-diggings, the
daring traveller and miner. And you looked it. I don't
see how any woman could have looked at you without
loving you — then. But you don't look it now.

"Please, please, forgive me for hurting you. You
wanted straight talk, and I am giving it to you. All these
last years you have been living unnaturally. You, a man
of the open, have been cooping yourself up in the cities with
all that that means. You are not the same man at all, and
your money is destroying you. You are becoming some-
thing different, something not so healthy, not so clean, not so
nice. Your money and your way of life are doing it. You
know it. You haven't the same body now that you had
then. You are putting on flesh, and it is not healthy flesh.
You are kind and genial with me, I know, but you are not
kind and genial to all the world as you were then. You
have become harsh and cruel. And I know. Remember,
I have studied you six days a week, month after month,
year after year; and I know more about the most insig-
nificant parts of you than you know of all of me. The cruel-
ty is not only in your heart and thoughts, but it is there in

BURNING DAYLIGHT 293

your face. It has put its lines there. I have watched them
come and grow. Your money, and the Hfe it compels you
to lead, have done all this. You are being brutalized and
degraded. And this process can only go on and on until you
are hopelessly destroyed — "

He attempted to interrupt, but she stopped him, herself
breathless and her voice trembling.

"No, no; let me finish utterly. I have done nothing
but think, think, think, all these months, ever since you
came riding with me, and now that I have begun to speak
I am going to speak all that I have in me. I do love you,
but I cannot marry you and destroy love. You are growing
into a thing that I must in the end despise. You can't help
it. More than you can possibly love me, do you love this
business game. This business — and it's all perfectly use-
less, so far as you are concerned — claims all of you. I
sometimes think it would be easier to share you equitably
with another woman than to share you with this business.
I might have half of you, at any rate. But this business
would claim, not half of you, but nine-tenths of you, or
ninety-nine hundredths.

"Remember, the meaning of marriage to me is not to get
a man's money to spend. I want the man. You say you
want me. And suppose I consented, but gave you only one-
hundredth part of me. Suppose there was something else
in my life that took the other ninety-nine parts, and,
furthermore, that ruined my figure, that put pouches under
my eyes and crowsfeet in the corners, that made me un-
beautiful to look upon and that made my spirit unbeautiful.
Would you be satisfied with that one-hundredth part of
me? Yet that is all you are offering me of yourself. Do
you wonder that I won't marry you? — that I can't?"

Daylight waited to see if she were quite done, and she
went on again.

"It isn't that I am selfish. After all, love is giving, not

294 BURNING DAYLIGHT

receiving. But I see so clearly that all my giving could not
do you any good. You are like a sick man. You don't
play business like other men. You play it heart and soul
and all of you. No matter what you believed and intended,
a wife would be only a brief diversion. There is that mag-
nificent Bob, eating his head off in the stable. You would
buy me a beautiful mansion and leave me in it to yawn my
head off, or cry my eyes out because of my helplessness and
inability to save you. This disease of business would be
corroding you and marring you all the time. You play it
as you have played everything else, as in Alaska you
played the life of the trail. Nobody could be permitted to
travel as fast and as far as you, to work as hard or endure
as much. You hold back nothing; you put all you've got
into whatever you are doing — "

"Limit is the sky," he grunted grim affirmation.

"But if you would only play the lover-husband that
way — "

Her voice faltered and stopped, and a blush showed in her
wet cheeks as her eyes fell before his.

"And now I won't say another word," she added. "I've
delivered a whole sermon."

She rested now, frankly and fairly, in the shelter of his
arms, and both were oblivious to the gale that rushed past
them in quicker and stronger blasts. The big downpour of
rain had not yet come, but the mist-like squalls were more
frequent. Daylight was openly perplexed, and he was still
perplexed when he began to speak.

"I'm stumped. I'm up a tree. I'm clean flabbergasted.
Miss Mason — or Dede, because I love to call you that
name. I'm free to confess there's a mighty big heap in
what you say. As I understand it, your conclusion is that
you'd marry me if I hadn't a cent and if I wasn't getting fat.
— No, no ; I'm not joking. I acknowledge the corn, and
that's just my way of boiling the matter down and summing

BURNING DAYLIGHT 295

it up. If I hadn't a cent, and if I was living a healthy life
with all the time in the world to love you and be your hus-
band, instead of being awash to my back teeth in business
and all the rest — why, you'd marry me.

"That's all as clear as print, and you're correcter than I
ever guessed before. You've sure opened my eyes a few.
But I'm stuck. What can I do? My business has sure
roped, thrown, and branded me. I'm tied hand and foot,
and I can't get up and meander over green pastures. I'm
like the man that got the bear by the tail. I can't let go;
and I want you, and I've got to let go to get you.

"I don't know what to do, but something's sure got to
happen. I can't lose you. I just can't. And I'm not go-
ing to. Why, you're running business a close second right
now. Business never kept me awake nights,

"You've left me no argument. I know I'm not the same
man that came from Alaska. I couldn't hit the trail with
the dogs as I did in them days. I'm soft in my muscles, and
my mind's gone hard. I used to respect men. I despise
them now. You see, I spent all my life in the open, and I
reckon I'm an open-air man. WTiy, I've got the prettiest
little ranch you ever laid eyes on, up in Glen Ellen. That's
where I got stuck for that brick-yard. You recollect hand-
ling the correspondence. I only laid eyes on the ranch that
one time, and I so fell in love with it that I bought it there
and then. I just rode around the hills, and was happy as a
kid out of school. I'd be a better man living in the country.
The city doesn't make me better. You're plumb right there.
I know it. But suppose your prayer should be answered
and I'd go clean broke and have to work for day's wages?"

She did not answer, though all the body of her seemed to
urge consent.

"Suppose I had nothing left but that little ranch, and was
satisfied to grow a few chickens and scratch a living some-
how — would you marry me then, Dede?"

296 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"Why, we'd be together all the time!" she cried.

"But I'd have to be out ploughing once in a while,"
he warned, "or driving to town to get the grub."

"But there wouldn't be the office, at any rate, and no
man to see, and men to see without end. But it is all foolish
and impossible, and we'll have to be starting back now if
we're to escape the rain."

Then was the moment, among the trees, ere they began
the descent of the hill, that Daylight might have drawn her
closely to him and kissed her once. But he was too per-
plexed with the new thoughts she had put into his head to
take advantage of the situation. He merely caught her by
the arm and helped her over the rougher footing.

"It's darn pretty country up there at Glen Ellen," he
said meditatively. "I wish you could see it."

At the edge of the grove he suggested that it might be
better for them to part there.

"It's your neighborhood, and folks is liable to talk."

But she insisted that he accompany her as far as the house.

"I can't ask you in," she said, extending her hand at the
foot of the steps.

The wind was humming wildly in sharply recurrent gusts,
but still the rain held off.

"Do you know," he said, "taking it by and large, it's the
happiest day of my life." He took off his hat, and the
wind rippled and twisted his black hair as he went on
solemnly, "And I'm sure grateful to God, or whoever or
whatever is responsible for your being on this earth. For
you do hke me heaps. It's been my joy to hear you say so
to-day. It's — " He left the thought arrested, and his
face assumed the familiar whimsical expression as he mur-
mured: "Dede, Dede, we've just got to get married. It's
the only way, and trust to luck for it's coming out all right."

But the tears were threatening to rise in her eyes again, as
she shook her head and turned and went up the steps.

CHAPTER XX

When the ferry system began to run, and the time be-
tween Oakland and San Francisco was demonstrated to be
cut in half, the tide of Dayhght's terrific expenditure
started to turn. Not that it really did turn, for he promptly
went into further investments. Thousands of lots in his
residence tracts were sold, and thousands of homes were
being built. Factory sites also were selling, and business
properties in the heart of Oakland. All this tended to a
steady appreciation in value of Daylight's huge holdings.
But, as of old, he had his hunch and was riding it. Al-
ready he had begun borrowing from the banks. The mag-
nificent profits he made on the land he sold were turned
into more land, into more development; and instead of
paying off old loans, he contracted new ones. As he had
pyramided in Dawson City, he now pyramided in Oakland ;
but he did it with the knowledge that it was a stable enter-
prise rather than a risky placer-mining boom.

In a small way, other men were following his lead, buying
and selling land and profiting by the improvement work
he was doing. But this was to be expected, and the small
fortunes they were making at his expense did not irritate
him. There was an exception, however. One Simon
Dolliver, with money to go in with, and with cunning and
courage to back it up, bade fair to become a several times
millionaire at Daylight's expense. Dolliver, too, pyramided,
playing quickly and accurately, and keeping his money turn-
ing over and over. More than once Daylight found him

297

298 BURNING DAYLIGHT

in the way, as he himself had got in the way of the Guggen-
hammers when they first set their eyes on Ophir Creek.

Work on Daylight's dock system went on apace; yet it
was one of those enterprises that consumed money dread-
fully and that could not be accomplished as quickly as a
ferry system. The engineering difficulties were great, the
dredging and filling a cyclopean task. The mere item of
piling was anything but small. A good average pile, by
the time it was delivered on the ground, cost a twenty-dollar
gold piece, and these piles were used in unending thousands.
All accessible groves of mature eucalyptus were used, and,
as well, great rafts of pine piles were towed down the coast
from Puget Sound.

Not content with manufacturing the electricity for his
street railways in the old-fashioned way, in power-houses,
Daylight organized the Sierra and Salvador Power Com-
pany. This immediately assumed large proportions. Cross-
ing the San Joaquin Valley on the way from the mountains,
and plunging through the Contra Costa hills, there were
many towns, and even a robust city, that could be supplied
with power, also with light; and it became a street-and-
house-lighting project as well. As soon as the purchase of
power sites in the Sierras was rushed through, the survey
parties were out and building operations begun.

And so it went. There were a thousand maws into which
he poured unceasing streams of money. But it was all so
sound and legitimate, that Daylight, born gambler that he
was, and with his clear, wide vision, could not play softly
and safely. It was a big opportunity, and to him there
was only one way to play it, and that was the big way. Nor
did his one confidential adviser, Larry Hegan, aid him to
caution. On the contrary, it was Daylight who was com-
pelled to veto the wilder visions of that able hasheesh
dreamer. Not only did Daylight borrow heavily from the
banks and trust companies, but on several of his corpora-

BURNING DAYLIGHT 299

tions he was compelled to issue stock. He did this grudg-
ingly, however, and retained most of his big enterprises
wholly his own. Among the companies in which he reluc-
tantly allowed the investing public to join were the Golden
Gate Dock Company, and Recreation Parks Company, the
United Water Company, the Encinal Shipbuilding Com-
pany, and the Sierra and Salvador Power Company. Nev-
ertheless, between himself and Hegan, he retained the con-
trolling share in each of these enterprises.

His affair with Dede Mason only seemed to languish.
While delaying to grapple with the strange problem it
presented, his desire for her continued to grow. In his
gambling simile, his conclusion was that Luck had dealt him
the most remarkable card in the deck, and that for years
he had overlooked it. Love was the card, and it beat them
all. Love was the king card of trumps, the fifth ace, the
joker in a game of tenderfoot poker. It was the card of
cards, and play it he would, to the limit, when the opening
came. He could not see that opening yet. The present
game would have to play to some sort of a conclusion first.

Yet he could not shake from his brain and vision the
warm recollection of those bronze slippers, that clinging
gown, and all the feminine softness and pliancy of Dede in
her pretty Berkeley rooms. Once again, on a rainy Sunday,
he telephoned that he was coming. And, as has happened
ever since man first looked upon woman and called her
good, again he played the blind force of male compulsion
against the woman's secret weakness to yield. Not that
it was Daylight's way abjectly to beg and entreat. On
the contrary, he was masterful in whatever he did, but he
had a trick of whimsical wheedling that Dede found harder
to resist than the pleas of a suppliant lover. It was not a
happy scene in its outcome, for Dede, in the throes of her
own desire, desperate with weakness and at the same time
with her better judgment hating her weakness, cried out: —

300 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"You urge me to try a chance, to marry you now and trust
to luck for it to come out right. And life is a gamble, you
say. Very well, let us gamble. Take a coin and toss it in the
air. If it comes heads, I'll marry you. If it doesn't, you
are forever to leave me alone and never mention marriage
again."

A fire of mingled love and the passion of gambling came
into Daylight's eyes. Involuntarily his hand started for
his pocket for the coin. Then it stopped, and the hght in his
eyes was troubled.

"Go on," she ordered sharply. "Don't delay, or I may
change my mind, and you will lose the chance."

"Little woman." His similes were humorous, but there
was no humor in their meaning. His thought was as solemn
as his voice. "Little woman, I'd gamble all the way from
Creation to the Day of Judgment; I'd gamble a golden
harp against another man's halo; I'd toss for pennies on the
front steps of the New Jerusalem or set up a faro layout
just outside the Pearly Gates; but I'll be everlastingly
damned if I'll gamble on love. Love's too big to me to
take a chance on. Love's got to be a sure thing, and be-
tween you and me it is a sure thing. If the odds was a
hundred to one on my winning this flip, just the same, nary
a flip."

In the spring of the year the Great Panic came on. The
first warning was when the banks began calling in their un-
protected loans. Dayhght promptly paid the first several of
his personal notes that were presented; then he divined that
these demands but indicated the way the wind was going to
blow, and that one of those terrific financial storms he had
heard about was soon to sweep over the United States.
How terrific this particular storm was to be he did not antici-
pate. Nevertheless, he took every precaution in his power,
and had no anxiety about his weathering it out.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 30 1

Money grew tighter. Beginning with the crash of several
of the greatest Eastern banking houses, the tightness spread,
until every bank in the country was calling in its credits.
Daylight was caught, and caught because of the fact that for
the first time he had been playing the legitimate business
game. In the old days, such a panic, with the accompany-
ing extreme shrinkage of values, would have been a golden
harvest time for him. As it was, he watched the gamblers,
who had ridden the wave of prosperity and made prepara-
tion for the slump, getting out from under and safely scurry-
ing to cover or proceeding to reap a double harvest.
Nothing remained for him but to stand fast and hold up.

He saw the situation clearly. When the banks demanded
that he pay his loans, he knew that the banks were in sore
need of the money. But he was in sorer need. And he
knew that the banks did not want his collateral which they
held. It would do them no good. In such a tumbling of
values was no time to sell. His collateral was good, all of
it, eminently sound and worth while ; yet it was worthless at
such a moment, when the one unceasing cry was money,
money, money. Finding him obdurate, the banks demand-
ed more collateral, and as the money pinch tightened they
asked for two and even three times as much as had been
originally accepted. Sometimes Daylight yielded to these
demands, but more often not, and always battling fiercely.

He fought as with clay behind a crumbling wall. All
portions of the wall were menaced, and he went around con-
stantly strengthening the weakest parts with clay. This
clay was money, and was applied, a sop here and a sop there,
as fast as it was needed, but only w^hen it was direly needed.
The strength of his position lay in the Yerba Buena Ferry
Company, the Consolidated Street Railways, and the United
Water Company. Though people were no longer buying
residence lots and factory and business sites, they were com-
pelled to ride on his cars and ferry-boats and to consume his

302 BURNING DAYLIGHT

water . When all the financial world was clamoring for money,
and perishing through lack of it, the first of each month
many thousands of dollars poured into his coffers from the
water-rates, and each day ten thousand dollars, in dimes
and nickels, came in from his street railways and ferries.

Cash was what was wanted, and had he had the use of all
this steady river of cash, all would have been well with him.
As it was, he had to fight continually for a portion of it.
Improvement work ceased, and only absolutely essential re-
pairs were made. His fiercest fight was with the operating
expenses, and this was a fight that never ended. There was
never any let-up in his turning the thumb-screws of ex-
tended credit and economy. From the big wholesale sup-
pliers down through the salary list to office stationery and
postage stamps, he kept the thumb-screws turning. When
his superintendents and heads of departments performed
prodigies of cutting down, he patted them on the back and
demanded more. When they threw down their hands in de-
spair, he showed them how more could be accomplished.

"You are getting eight thousand dollars a year," he told
Matthewson. "It's better pay than you ever got in your life
before. Your fortune is in the same sack with mine.
You've got to stand for some of the strain and risk. You've
got personal credit in this town. Use it. Stand off butcher
and baker and all the rest. Savvee? You're drawing down
something like six hundred and sixty dollars a month. I
want that cash. From now on, stand everybody off and
draw down a hundred. I'll pay you interest on the rest till
this blows over."

Two weeks later, with the pay-roll before them, it was: —

"Matthewson, who's this bookkeeper, Rogers? Your
nephew? I thought so. He's pulling down eighty-five a
month. After this let him draw thirty-five. The forty can
ride with me at interest."

"Impossible!" Matthewson cried. "He can't make ends

BURNING DAYLIGHT r

G::naimm

meet on his salary as it is, and he has a wife and two
kids — "

Daylight was upon him with a mighty oath.

"Can't! Impossible! What in hell do you think I'm
running? A home for feeble-minded? Feeding and dress-
ing and wiping the little noses of a lot of idiots that can't
take care of themselves? Not on your life. I'm hustling,
and now's the time that everybody that works for me has got
to hustle. I want no fair-weather birds holding down my
office chairs or anything else. This is nasty weather, damn
nasty weather, and they've got to buck into it just like me.
There are ten thousand men out of work in Oakland right
now, and sixty thousand more in San Francisco. Your
nephew, and everybody else on your pay-roll, can do as I say
right now or quit. Sawee? If any of them get stuck,
you go around yourself and guarantee their credit with the
butchers and grocers. And you trim down that pay-roll
accordingly. I've been carrying a few thousand folks that'll
have to carry themselves for a while now, that's all.'^

"You say this filter's got to be replaced," he told his chief
of the water-works. "Well see about it. Let the people
of Oakland drink mud for a change. It'll teach them to
appreciate good water. Stop work at once. Get those
men off the pay-roll. Cancel all orders for material. The
contractors will sue? Let 'em sue and be damned. We'll
be busted higher'n a kite or on easy street before they can
get judgment."

And to Wilkinson: —

"Take off that owl boat. Let the public roar and come
home early to its wife. And there's that last car that con-
nects with the 12:45 boat at Twenty-second and Hastings.
Cut it out. I can't run it for two or three passengers. Let
them take an earlier boat home or walk. This is no time
for philanthropy. And you might as well take off a few
more cars in the rush hours. Let the strap-hangers pay.

304 BURNING DAYLIGHT

It's the Strap-hangers that'll keep us from going under."

And to another chief, who broke down under the excessive
strain of retrenchment: —

"You say I can't do that and can't do this. I'll just show
you a few of the latest patterns in the can-and-can't line.
You'll be compelled to resign? All right, if you think so.
I never saw the man yet that I was hard up for. And when
any man thinks I can't get along without him, I just show
him the latest pattern in that line of goods and give him
his walking-papers."

And so he fought and drove and bullied and even whee-
dled his way along. It was fight, fight, fight, and no let-up,
from the first thing in the morning till nightfall. His private
office saw throngs every day. All men came to see him, or
were ordered to come. Now it was an optimistic opinion on
the panic, a funny story, a serious business talk, or a straight
take-it-or-leave-it blow from the shoulder. And there was
nobody to relieve him. It was a case of drive, drive, drive,
and he alone could do the driving. And this went on day
after day, while the whole business world rocked around him
and house after house crashed to the ground.

"It's all right, old man," he told Hegan every morning;
and it was the same cheerful word that he passed out all day
long, except at such times when he was in the thick of fight-
ing to have his will with persons and things.

Eight o'clock saw him at his desk each morning. By
ten o'clock, it was into the machine and away for a round of
the banks. And usually in the machine with him was the
ten thousand and more dollars that had been earned by his
ferries and railways the day before. This was for the weak-
est spot in the financial dike. And with one bank president
after another similar scenes were enacted. They were par-
alyzed with fear, and first of all he played his role of the big
vital optimist. Times were improving. Of course they
were. The signs were already in the air. All that anybody

BURNING DAYLIGHT 305

had to do was to sit tight a little longer and hold on. That
was all. Money was already more active in the East.
Look at the trading on Wall Street of the last twenty-four
hours. That was the straw that showed the wind. Hadn't
Ryan said so and so? and wasn't it reported that Morgan
was preparing to do this and that?

As for himself, weren't the street-railway earnings in-
creasing steadily? In spite of the panic, more and more
people were coming to Oakland right along. Movements
were already beginning in real estate. He was dickering
even then to sell over a thousand of his suburban acres. Of
course it was at a sacrifice, but it would ease the strain on
all of them and bolster up the faint-hearted. That was
the trouble — the faint-hearts. Had there been no faint-
hearts there would have been no panic. There was that
Eastern syndicate, negotiating with him now to take the
majority of the stock in the Sierra and Salvador Power
Company off his hands. That showed confidence that
better times were at hand.

And if it was not cheery discourse, but prayer and en-
treaty or show down and fight on the part of the banks,
Daylight had to counter in kind. If they could bully, he
could bully. If the favor he asked were refused, it became
the thing he demanded. And when it came down to raw
and naked fighting, with the last veil of sentiment or illu-
sion torn off, he could take their breaths away.

But he knew, also, how and when to give in. When he
saw the wall shaking and crumbling irretrievably at a par-
ticular place, he patched it up with sops of cash from his
three cash-earning companies. If the banks went, he went
too. It was a case of their having to hold out. If they
smashed, and all the collateral they held of his was thrown
on the chaotic market, it would be the end. And so it was, as
the time passed, that on occasion his red motor-car carried,
in addition to the daily cash, the most gilt-edged securities

3o6 BURNING DAYLIGHT

he possessed; namely, the Ferry Company, United Water,
and Consolidated Railways. But he did this reluctantly,
fighting inch by inch.

As he told the president of the Merchants San Antonio,
who made the plea of carrying so many others: —

''They're small fry. Let them smash. I'm the king pin
here. You've got more money to make out of me than them.
Of course, you're carrying too much, and you've got to
choose, that's all. It's root hog or die for you or them. I'm
too strong to smash. You could only embarrass me and
get yourself tangled up. Your way out is to let the small
fry go, and I'll lend you a hand to do it."

And it was Daylight, also, in this time of financial an-
archy, who sized up Simon Dolliver's affairs and lent the
hand that sent that rival down in utter failure. The Golden
Gate National was the keystone of Dolliver's strength, and
to the president of that institution Daylight said: —

"Here I've been lending you a hand, and you now in the
last ditch, with Dolliver riding on you and me all the time.
It don't go. You hear me, it don't go. Dolliver couldn't
cough up eleven dollars to save you. Let him get oft" and
walk, and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you the rail-
way nickels for four days — that's forty thousand cash.
And on the sixth of the month you can count on twenty
thousand more from the Water Company." He shrugged
his shoulders. "Take it or leave it. Them's my terms."

"It's dog eat dog, and I ain't overlooking any meat that's
floating around," Daylight proclaimed that afternoon to
Hegan; and Simon Dolliver went the way of the unfortu-
nate in the Great Panic who were caught with plenty of
paper and no money.

Daylight's shifts and devices were amazing. Nothing,
however large or small, passed his keen sight unobserved.
The strain he was under was terrific. He no longer ate lunch.
The days were too short, and his noon hours and his office

BURNING DAYLIGHT 307

were as crowded as at any other time. By the end of the
day he was exhausted, and, as never before, he sought relief
behind his wall of alcoholic inhibition. Straight to his hotel
he was driven, and straight to his rooms he went, where
immediately was mixed for him the first of a series of double
Martinis. By dinner, his brain was well clouded and the
panic forgotten. By bedtime, with the assistance of Scotch
whiskey, he was full — not violently nor uproariously full,
nor stupefied, but merely well under the influence of a pleas-
ant and mild anaesthetic.

Next morning he awoke with parched lips and mouth, and
with sensations of heaviness in his head which quickly
passed away. By eight o'clock he was at his desk, buckled
down to the fight, by ten o'clock on his personal round of
the banks, and after that, without a moment's cessation,
till nightfall, he was handling the knotty tangles of indus-
try, finance, and human nature that crowded upon him.
And with nightfall it was back to the hotel, the double Mar-
tinis and the Scotch; and this was his programme day after
day until the days ran into weeks.

CHAPTER XXI

Though Daylight appeared among his fellows hearty-
voiced, inexhaustible, spilling over with energy and vitality,
deep down he was a very weary man. And sometimes,
under the Hquor drug, snatches of wisdom came to him far
more lucidly than in his sober moments, as, for instance, one
night, when he sat on the edge of the bed with one shoe in
his hand and meditated on Dede's aphorism to the effect
that he could not sleep in more than one bed at a time. Still
holding the shoe, he looked at the array of horsehair bridles
on the walls. Then, carrying the shoe, he got up and sol-
emnly counted them, journeying into the two adjoining
rooms to complete the tale. Then he came back to the bed
and gravely addressed his shoe: —

"The little woman's right. Only one bed at a time. One
hundred and forty hair bridles, and nothing doing with ary
one of them. One bridle at a time ! I can't ride one horse
at a time. Poor old Bob. I'd better be sending you out to
pasture. Thirty milhon dollars, and a hundred miUion or
nothing in sight, and what have I got to show for it? There's
lots of things money can't buy. It can't buy the little
woman. It can't buy capacity. What's the good of thirty
millions when I ain't got room for more than a quart of
cocktails a day? If I had a hundred-quart-cocktail thirst,
it'd be different. But one quart — one measly Httle quart 1
Here I am, a thirty times over millionaire, slaving harder
every day than any dozen men that work for me, and all I
get is two meals that don't taste good, one bed, a quart of
^Martini, and a hundred and forty hair bridles to look at on

308

BURNING DAYLIGHT 309

the wall." He stared around at the array disconsolately.
"Mr. Shoe, I'm sizzled. Good* night."

Far worse than the controlled, steady drinker is the soli-
tary drinker, and it was this that Daylight was developing
into. He rarely drank sociably any more, but in his own
room, by himself. Returning weary from each day's unre-
mitting effort, he drugged himself to sleep, knowing that on
the morrow he would rise up with a dry and burning mouth
and repeat the programme.

But the country did not recover with its wonted elasticity.
Money did not become freer, though the casual reader of
Daylight's newspapers, as well as of all the other owned and
subsidized newspapers in the country, could only have con-
cluded that the money tightness was over and that the panic
was past history. All public utterances were cheery and
optimistic, but privately many of the utterers were in des-
perate straits. The scenes enacted in the privacy of Day-
light's office, and of the meetings of his boards of directors,
would have given the lie to the editorials in his newspapers ;
as, for instance, when he addressed the big stockholders in
the Sierra and Salvador Power Company, the United Water
Company, and the several other stock companies: —

"You've got to dig. You've got a good thing, but you'll
have to sacrifice in order to hold on. There ain't no use
spouting hard times explanations. Don't I know the hard
times is on? Ain't that what you're here for? As I said
before, you've got to dig. I run the majority stock, and it's
come to a case of assess. It's that or smash. If ever I start
going you won't know what struck you, I'll smash that
hard. The small fry can let go, but you big ones can't. This
ship won't sink as long as you stay with her. But if you
start to leave her, down you'll sure go before you can get
to shore. This assessment has got to be met, that's all."

The big wholesale supply houses, the caterers for his ho-
tels, and all the crowd that incessantly demanded to be

310 BURNING DAYLIGHT

paid, had their hot half-hours with him. He summoned
them to his office and displayed his latest patterns of can
and can't and will and won't.

"By God, you've got to carry me!" he told them. "If
you think this is a pleasant little game of parlor whist and
that you can quit and go home whenever you want, you're
plumb wrong. Look here, Watkins, you remarked five min-
utes ago that you wouldn't stand for it. Now let me tell you
a few. You're going to stand for it and keep on standing for
it. You're going to continue supplying me and taking my
paper until the pinch is over. How you're going to do it is
your trouble, not mine. You remember what I did to Klink-
ner and the Altamont Trust Company? I know the inside of
your business better than you do yourself, and if you try to
drop me I'll smash you. Even if I'd be going to smash my-
self, I'd find a minute to turn on you and bring you down
with me. It's sink or swim for all of us, and I reckon you'll
find it to your interest to keep me on top the puddle."

Perhaps his bitterest fight was with the stockholders of
the United Water Company, for it was practically the whole
of the gross earnings of this company that he voted to lend
to himself and used to bolster up his wide battle front. Yet
he never pushed his arbitrary rule too far. Compelling sac-
rifice from the men whose fortunes were tied up with his,
nevertheless when any one of them was driven to the wall
and was in dire need, Daylight was there to help him back
into the line. Only a strong man could have saved so com-
plicated a situation in such time of stress, and Daylight was
that man. He turned and twisted, schemed and devised,
bludgeoned and bullied the weaker ones, kept the faint-
hearted in the fight, and had no mercy on the deserter.

And in the end, when early summer was on, everything be-
gan to mend. Came a day when Daylight did the unprece-
dented. He left the office an hour earlier than usual, and
for the reason that for the first time since the panic there

BURNING DAYLIGHT 3II

was not an item of work waiting to be done. He dropped
into Hegan's private office, before leaving, for a chat, and
as he stood up to go, he said: —

"Hegan, we're all hunkadory. We're pulling out of the
financial pawnshop in fine shape, and we'll get out without
leaving one unredeemed pledge behind. The worst is over,
and the end is in sight. Just a tight rein for a couple more
weeks, just a bit of a pinch or a flurry or so now and then,
and we can let go and spit on our hands."

For once he varied his programme. Instead of going di-
rectly to his hotel, he started on a round of the bars and
cafes, drinking a cocktail here and a cocktail there, and two
or three when he encountered men he knew. It was after an
hour or so of this that he dropped into the bar of the Par-
thenon for one last drink before going to dinner. By this
time all his being was pleasantly warmed by the alcohol,
and he was in the most genial and best of spirits. At the
corner of the bar several young men were up to the old trick
of resting their elbows and attempting to force each other's
hands down. One broad-shouldered young giant never re-
moved his elbow, but put down every hand that came
against him.. Daylight was interested.

"It's Slosson," the barkeeper told him, in answer to his
query. "He's the heavy-hammer thrower at the U. C.
Broke all records this year, and the world's record on top of
it. He's a husky all right all right."

Daylight nodded and went over to him, placing his own
arm in opposition.

"I'd like to go you a flutter, son, on that proposition,"
he said.

The young man laughed and locked hands with him;
and to Daylight's astonishment it was his own hand that
was forced down on the bar.

"Hold on," he muttered. "Just one more flutter. I
reckon I wasn't just ready that time."

312 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Again the hands locked. It happened quickly. The
offensive attack of Daylight's muscles slipped instantly into
defence, and, resisting vainly, his hand was forced over and
down. Daylight was dazed. It had been no trick. The
skill was equal, or, if anything, the superior skill had been
his. Strength, sheer strength, had done it. He called for the
drinks, and, still dazed and pondering, held up his own arm
and looked at it as at some new strange thing. He did
not know this arm. It certainly was not the arm he had
carried around with him all the years. The old arm? Why,
it would have been play to turn down that young husky's.
But this arm — he continued to look at it with such dubious
perplexity as to bring a roar of laughter from the young men.

This laughter aroused him. He joined in it at first, and
then his face slowly grew grave. He leaned toward the
hammer-thrower .

"Son," he said, "let me whisper a secret. Get out of here
and quit drinking before you begin."

The young fellow flushed angrily, but Daylight held
steadily on.

"You listen to your dad, and let him say a few. I'm a
young man myself, only I ain't. Let me tell you, several
years ago for me to turn your hand down would have been
like committing assault and battery on a kindergarten."

Slosson looked his incredulity, while the others grinned
and clustered around Daylight encouragingly.

"Son, I ain't given to preaching. This is the first time I
ever come to the penitent form, and you put me there your-
self — hard. I've seen a few in my time, and I ain't fastidi-
ous so as you can notice it. But let me tell you right now
that I'm worth the devil alone knows how many millions,
and that I'd sure give it all, right here on the bar, to turn
down your hand. Which means I'd give the whole shooting
match just to be back where I was before I quit sleeping
under the stars and come into the hen-coops of cities to

BURNING DAYLIGHT 3I3

drink cocktails and lift up my feet and ride. Son, that's
what's the matter with me, and that's the way I feel about
it. The game ain't worth the candle. You just take care of
yourself, and roll my advice over once in a while. Good
night."

He turned and lurched out of the place, the moral effect
of his utterance largely spoiled by the fact that he was so
patently full while he uttered it.

Still in a daze, Daylight made to his hotel, accomplished
his dinner, and prepared for bed.

"The damned young whippersnapper ! " he muttered.
"Put my hand down easy as you please. My hand! "

He held up the offending member and regarded it with
stupid wonder. The hand that had never been beaten!
The hand that had made the Circle City giants wince!
And a kid from college, with a laugh on his face, had put it
down — twice ! Dede was right. He was not the same
man. The situation would bear more serious looking into
than he had ever given it. But this was not the time. In
the morning, after a good sleep, he would give it considera-
tion.

CHAPTER XXII

Daylight awoke with the familiar parched mouth and
lips and throat, took a long drink of water from the pitcher
beside his bed, and gathered up the train of thought where
he had left it the night before. He reviewed the easement of
the financial strain. Things were mending at last. While
the going was still rough, the greatest dangers were already
past. As he had told Hegan, a tight rein and careful play-
ing were all that was needed now. Flurries and dangers
were bound to come, but not so grave as the ones they had
already weathered. He had been hit hard, but he was com-
ing through without broken bones, which was more than
Simon Dolliver and many another could say. And not
one of his business friends had been ruined. He had com-
pelled them to stay in hne to save himself, and they had
been saved as well.

His mind moved. on to the incident at the corner of the bar
of the Parthenon, when the young athlete had turned his
hand down. He was no longer stunned by the event, but he
was shocked and grieved, as only a strong man can be, at
this passing of his strength. And the issue was too clear for
him to dodge, even with himself. He knew why his hand had
gone down. Not because he was an old man. He was just in
the first flush of his prime, and, by rights, it was the hand of
the hammer-thrower which should have gone down. Day-
light knew that he had taken liberties with himself. He had
always looked upon this strength of his as permanent, and
here, for years, it had been steadily oozing from him. As
he had diagnosed it, he had come in from under the stars to

314

BURNING DAYLIGHT 315

roost in the coops of cities. He had almost forgotten how to
walk. He had lifted up his feet and been ridden around in
automobiles, cabs and carriages, and electric cars. He had
not exercised, and he had dry-rotted his muscles with alcohol.

And was it worth it? What did all his money mean after
all? Dede was right. It could buy him no more than one
bed at a time, and at the same time it made him the abjectest
of slaves. It tied him fast. He was tied by it right now.
Even if he so desired, he could not lie abed this very day.
His money called him. The office whistle would soon blow,
and he must answer it. The early sunshine was streaming
through his window — a fine day for a ride in the hills on
Bob, with Dede beside him on her Mab. Yet all his millions
could not buy him this one day. One of those flurries might
come along, and he had to be on the spot to meet it. Thirty
millions ! And they were powerless to persuade Dede to ride
on Mab — Mab, whom he had bought, and who was unused
and growing fat on pasture. What were thirty millions
when they could not buy a man a ride with the girl he loved?
Thirty millions ! — that made him come here and go there,
that rode upon him like so many millstones, that destroyed
him while they grew, that put their foot down and prevented
him from winning this girl who worked for ninety dollars
a month.

Which was better? he asked himself. All this was
Dede's own thought. It was what she had meant when
she prayed he would go broke. He held up his offending
right arm. It wasn't the same old arm. Of course she
could not love that arm and that body as she had loved the
strong, clean arm and body of years before. He didn't like
that arm and body himself. A young whippersnapper had
been able to take liberties with it. It had gone back on him.
He sat up suddenly. No, by God, he had gone back on it!
He had gone back on himself. He had gone back on Dede.
She was right, a thousand times right, and she had sense

31 6 BURNING DAYLIGHT

enough to know it, sense enough to refuse to marry a money-
slave with a whiskey-rotted carcass.

He got out of bed and looked at himself in the long mirror
on the wardrobe door. He wasn't pretty. The old-time
lean cheeks were gone. These were heavy, seeming to hang
down by their own weight. He looked for the lines of
cruelty Dede had spoken of, and he found them, and he
found the harshness in the eyes as well, the eyes that were
muddy now after all the cocktails of the night before, and
of the months and years before. He looked at the clearly
defined pouches that showed under his eyes, and they
shocked him. He rolled up the sleeve of his pajamas.
No wonder the hammer-thrower had put his hand down.
Those weren't muscles. A rising tide of fat had submerged
them. He stripped off the pajama coat. Again he was
shocked, this time by the bulk of his body. It wasn't
pretty. The lean stomach had become a paunch. The
ridged muscles of chest and shoulders and abdomen had
broken down into rolls of flesh.

He sat down on the bed, and through his mind drifted
pictures of his youthful excellence, of the hardships he had
endured over other men, of the Indians and dogs he had
run off their legs in the heart-breaking days and nights on
the Alaskan trail, of the feats of strength that had made
him king over a husky race of frontiersmen.

And this was age. Then there drifted across the field of
vision of his mind's eye the old man he had encountered at
Glen Ellen, coming up the hillside through the fires of sun-
set, white-headed and white-bearded, eighty-four, in his
hand the pail of foaming milk and in his face all the warm
glow and content of the passing summer day. That had been
age. "Yes siree, eighty-four, and spryer than most," he
could hear the old man say. "And I ain't loafed none.
I walked across the Plains with an ox-team and fit Injuns
in '51, and I was a family man then with seven youngsters."

BURNING DAYLIGHT 317

Next he remembered the old woman of the chaparral,
pressing grapes in her mountain clearing; and Ferguson,
the little man who had scuttled into the road like a rabbit,
the one-time managing editor of a great newspaper, who was
content to live in the chaparral along with his spring of
mountain water and his hand-reared and manicured fruit
trees. Ferguson had solved a problem. A weakling and
an alcoholic, he had run away from the doctors and the
chicken-coop of a city, and soaked up health like a thirsty
sponge. Well, Daylight pondered, if a sick man whom the
doctors had given up could develop into a healthy farm
laborer, what couldn't a merely stout man like himself do
under similar circumstances? He caught a vision of his
body with all its youthful excellence returned, and thought
of Dede, and sat down suddenly on the bed, startled by the
greatness of the idea that had come to him.

He did not sit long. His mind, working in its customary
way, like a steel trap, canvassed the idea in all its bearings.
It was big — bigger than anything he had faced before.
And he faced it squarely, picked it up in his two hands and
turned it over and around and looked at it. The simplicity
of it delighted him. He chuckled over it, reached his deci-
sion, and began to dress. Midway in the dressing he
stopped in order to use the telephone.

Dede was the first he called up.

"Don't come to the office this morning," he said. "I'm
coming out to see you for a moment."

He called up others. He ordered his motor-car. To
Jones he gave instructions for the forwarding of Bob and
Wolf to Glen Ellen, Hegan he surprised by asking him to
look up the deed of the Glen Ellen ranch and make out a
new one in Dede Mason's name. "Who?" Hegan de-
manded. "Dede Mason," Daylight replied imperturbably
— "the 'phone must be indistinct this morning. D-e-d-e
M-a-s-o-n. Got it?"

3l8 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Half an hour later he was flying out to Berkeley. And
for the first time the big red car halted directly before the
house. Dede offered to receive him in the parlor, but he
shook his head and nodded toward her rooms.

"In there," he said. "No other place would suit."

As the door closed, his arms went out and around her.
Then he stood with his hands on her shoulders and looking
dowTi into her face.

"Dede, if I tell you, flat and straight, that I'm going up to
live on that ranch at Glen Ellen, that I ain't taking a cent
with me, that I'm going to scratch for every bite I eat, and
that I ain't going to play ary a card at the business game
again, will you come along with me?"

She gave a glad little cry, and he nestled her in closely.
But the next moment she had thrust herself out from him
to the old position at arm's length.

"I — I don't understand," she said breathlessly.

"And you ain't answered my proposition, though I guess
no answer is necessary. We're just going to get married
right away and start. I've sent Bob and Wolf along al-
ready. When will you be ready?"

Dede could not forbear to smile. "My, what a hurricane
of a man it is. I'm quite blown away. And you haven't
explained a word to me."

Daylight smiled responsively.

"Look here, Dede, this is what card-sharps call a show-
down. No more philandering and frills and long-distance
sparring between you and me. We're just going to talk
straight out in meeting — the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth. Now you answer some questions
for me, and then I'll answer yours." He paused. "Well,
I've got only one question after all: Do you love me enough
to marry me?"

"But — " she began.

"No buts," he broke in sharply. "This is a show-down.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 319

WTien I say marry, I mean what I told you at first, that we'd
go up and live on the ranch. Do you love me enough for
that?"

She looked at him for a moment, then her lids dropped,
and all of her seemed to advertise consent.

"Come on, then, let's start." The muscles of his legs
tensed involuntarily as if he were about to lead her to the
door. "My auto's waiting outside. There's nothing to
delay excepting getting on your hat."

He bent over her. "I reckon it's allowable," he said, as
he kissed her.

It was a long embrace, and she was the first to speak.

"You haven't answered my questions. How is this
possible? How can you leave your business? Has any-
thing happened?"

"No, nothing's happened yet, but it's going to, blame
quick. I've taken your preaching to heart, and I've come
to the penitent form. You are my Lord God, and I'm sure
going to serve you. The rest can go to thunder. You
were sure right. I've been the slave to my money, and
since I can't serve two masters I'm letting the money slide.
I'd sooner have you than all the money in the world, that's
all." Again he held her closely in his arms. "And I've
sure got you, Dede. I've sure got you.

"And I want to tell you a few more. I've taken my last
drink. You're marrying a whiskey-soak, but your husband
won't be that. He's going to grow into another man so
quick you won't know him. A couple of months from now,
up there in Glen Ellen, you'll wake up some morning and
find you've got a perfect stranger in the house with you,
and you'll have to get introduced to him all over again.
You'll say, 'I'm Mrs. Harnish, who are you?' And I'll
say, 'I'm Elam Harnish's younger brother. I've just
arrived from Alaska to attend the funeral.' 'What fu-
neral?' you'll say. And I'll say, 'Why, the funeral of

320 BURNING DAYLIGHT

that good-for-nothing, gambling, whiskey-drinking Burning
Daylight — the man that died of fatty degeneration of the
heart from sitting in night and day at the business game.'
'Yes ma'am,' I'll say, 'he's sure a gone 'coon, but I've come
to take his place and make you happy. And now, ma'am,
if you'll allow me, I'll just meander down to the pasture and
milk the cow while you're getting breakfast.' "

Again he caught her hand and made as if to start with her
for the door. Wlien she resisted, he bent and kissed her
again and again.

"I'm sure hungry for you, little woman," he murmured.
''You make thirty millions look like thirty cents."

"Do sit dowTi and be sensible," she urged, her cheeks
flushed, the golden light in her eyes burning more golden
than he had ever seen it before.

But Daylight was bent on having his way, and when he
sat down it was with her beside him and his arm around
her.

" 'Yes, ma'am,' I'll say, 'Burning DayHght was a pretty
good cuss, but it's better that he's gone. He quit rolling up
in his rabbit-skins and sleeping in the snow, and went to liv-
ing in a chicken-coop. He lifted up his legs and quit walk-
ing and working, and took to existing on Martini cocktails
and Scotch whiskey. He thought he loved you, ma'am,
and he did his best, but he loved his cocktails more, and he
loved his money more, and himself more, and 'most every-
thing else more than he did you.' And then I'll say, 'Ma'am,
you just run your eyes over me and see how different I am.
I ain't got a cocktail thirst, and all the money I got is a dol-
lar and forty cents and I've got to buy a new axe, the last
one being plumb wore out, and I can love you just about
eleven times as much as your first husband did. You see,
ma'am, he went all to fat. And there ain't ary ounce of
fat on me.' And I'll roll up my sleeve and show you, and
say, 'Mrs. Harnish, after having experience with being mar-

BURNING DAYLIGHT 321

ried to that old fat money-bags, do you-all mind marrying
a slim young fellow like me?' And you'll just wipe a tear
away for poor old Daylight, and kind of lean toward me
with a willing expression in your eye, and then I'll blush
maybe some, being a young fellow, and put my arm around
you, like that, and then — why, then I'll up and marry my
brother's widow, and go out and do the chores while she's
cooking a bite to eat.'^

"But you haven't answered my questions," she re-
proached him, as she emerged, rosy and radiant, from the
embrace that had accompanied the culmination of his
narrative.

"Now just what do you want to know?" he asked.

"I want to know how all this is possible? How you are
able to leave your business at a time like this? What you
meant by saying that something was going to happen
quickly? I — " She hesitated and blushed. "I an-
swered your question, you know."

"Let's go and get married," he urged, all the whimsicality
of his utterance duplicated in his eyes. "You know I've
got to make way for that husky young brother of mine, and
I ain't got long to live." She made an impatient moue, and
he continued seriously. "You see, it's like this, Dede.
I've been working like forty horses ever since this blamed
panic set in, and all the time some of those ideas you'd given
me were getting ready to sprout. Well, they sprouted this
morning, that's all. I started to get up, expecting to go
to the office as usual. But I didn't go to the office. All
that sprouting took place there and then. The sun was
shining in the window, and I knew it was a fine day in the
hills. And I knew I wanted to ride in the hills with you
just about thirty million times more than I wanted to go to
the office. And I knew all the time it was impossible. And
why? Because of the office. The office wouldn't let me.
All my money reared right up on its hind legs and got in

322 BURNING DAYLIGHT

the way and wouldn't let me. It's a way that blamed money
has of getting in the way. You know that yourself.

"And then I made up my mind that I was to the divid-
ing of the ways. One way led to the office. The other way
led to Berkeley. And I took the Berkeley road. I'm never
going to set foot in the office again. That's all gone,
finished, over and done with, and I'm letting it slide clean
to smash and then some. My mind's set on this. You
see, I've got religion, and it's sure the old-time religion;
it's love and you, and it's older than the oldest religion
in the world. It's IT, that's what it is — IT, with a cap-
ital I-T."

She looked at him with a sudden, startled expression.

"You mean — ?" she began.

"I mean just that. I'm wiping the slate clean. I'm
letting it all go to smash. When them thirty million dol-
lars stood up to my face and said I couldn't go out with you
in the hills to-day, I knew the time had come for me to put
my foot down. And I'm putting it down. I've got you,
and my strength to work for you, and that little ranch in
Sonoma. That's all I want, and that's all I'm going to
save out, along with Bob and Wolf, a suit case and a hun-
dred and forty hair bridles. All the rest goes, and good
riddance. It's that much junk."

But Dede was insistent.

"Then this — this tremendous loss is all unnecessary?"
she asked.

"Just what I haven't been telling you. It is necessary.
If that money thinks it can stand up right to my face and
say I can't go riding with you — "

"No, no; be serious," Dede broke in. "I don't mean
that, and you know it. WTiat I want to know is, from a
standpoint of business, is this failure necessary?"

He shook his head.

"You bet it isn't necessary. That's the point of it. I'm

BURNING DAYLIGHT 323

not letting go of it because I'm licked to a standstill by the
panic and have got to let go. I'm firing it out when I've
licked the panic and am winning, hands down. That just
shows how little I think of it. It's you that counts, little
woman, and I make my play accordingly."

But she drew away from his sheltering arms.

"You are mad, Elam."

"Call me that again," he murmured ecstatically. "It's
sure sweeter than the chink of millions."

All this she ignored.

"It's madness. You don't know what you are doing — "

"Oh, yes, I do," he assured her. "I'm winning the
dearest wish of my heart. Why, your little finger is worth
more — "

"Do be sensible for a moment."

"I was never more sensible in my life. I know what I
want, and I'm going to get it. I want you and the open
air. I want to get my foot off the paving-stones and my
ear away from the telephone. I want a little ranch-house in
one of the prettiest bits of country God ever made, and I
want to do the chores around that ranch-house — milk
cows, and chop wood, and curry horses, and plough the
ground, and all the rest of it; and I want you there in the
ranch-house with me. I'm plumb tired of everything else,
and clean wore out. And I'm sure the luckiest man alive,
for I've got what money can't buy. I've got you, and
thirty millions couldn't buy you, nor three thousand mil-
lions, nor thirty cents — "

A knock at the door interrupted him, and he was left to
stare delightedly at the Crouched Venus and on around
the room at Dede's dainty possessions, while she answered
the telephone.

"It is Mr. Hegan," she said, on returning. "He is hold-
ing the line. He says it is important."

Daylight shook his head and smiled.

324 BURNING DAYLIGHT

"Please tell Mr. Hegan to hang up. I'm done with the
office and I don't want to hear anything about anything."

A minute later she was back again.

''He refuses to hang up. He told me to tell you that
Unwin is in the office now, waiting to see you, and Harri-
son, too. Mr. Hegan said that Grimshaw and Hodgkins
are in trouble. That it looks as if they are going to break.
And he said something about protection."

It was startling information. Both Unwin and Harrison
represented big banking corporations, and Daylight knew
that if the house of Grimshaw and Hodgkins went it would
precipitate a number of failures and start a flurry of serious
dimensions. But Daylight smiled, and shook his head, and
mimicked the stereotyped office tone of voice as he said: —

"Miss Mason, you will kindly tell Mr. Hegan that there
is nothing doing and to hang up."

"But you can't do this," she pleaded.

"Watch me," he grimly answered.

"Elam!"

"Say it again!" he cried. "Say it again, and a dozen
Grimshaws and Hodgkins can smash! "

He caught her by the hand and drew her to him.

"You let Hegan hang on to that line till he's tired. We
can't be wasting a second on him on a day like this. He's
only in love with books and things, but I've got a real live
woman in my arms that's loving me all the time she's kick-
ing over the traces."

CHAPTER XXIII

"But I know something of the fight you have been mak-
ing," Dede contended. "If you stop now, all the work you
tiave done, everything, will be destroyed. You have no
right to do it. You can't do it."

Daylight was obdurate. He shook his head and smiled
tantalizingly.

"Nothing will be destroyed, Dede, nothing. You don't
inderstand this business game. It's done on paper. Don't
y^ou see? Where's the gold I dug out of Klondike? Why,
it's in twenty-dollar gold pieces, in gold watches, in wed-
ding rings. No matter what happens to me, the twenty-
iollar pieces, the watches, and the wedding rings remain,
suppose I died right now. It wouldn't affect the gold one
!ota. It's sure the same with this present situation. All
[ stand for is paper. I've got the paper for thousands of
icres of land. All right. Burn up the paper, and burn
ne along with it. The land remains, don't it? The rain
[alls on it, the seeds sprout in it,,the trees grow out of it, the
louses stand on it, the electric cars run over it. It's paper
:hat business is run on. I lose my paper, or I lose my life,
Vs all the same; it won't alter one grain of sand in all that
land, or twist one blade of grass around sideways.

"Nothing is going to be lost — not one pile out of the
locks, not one railroad spike, not one ounce of steam out
Df the gauge of a ferry-boat. The cars will go on running,
tvhether I hold the paper or somebody else holds it. The
tide has set toward Oakland. People are beginning to
pour in. We're selling building lots again. There is no

325

32 6 BURNING DAYLIGHT

stopping that tide. No matter what happens to me or the
paper, them three hundred thousand folks are coming just
the same. And there'll be cars to carry them around, and
houses to hold them, and good water for them to drink,
and electricity to give them light, and all the rest."

By this time Hegan had arrived in an automobile. The
honk of it came in through the open window, and they saw
it stop alongside the big red machine. In the car were
Unwin and Harrison, while Jones sat with the chauffeur.

"I'll see Hegan," Daylight told Dede. "There's no need
for the rest. They can wait in the machine."

"Is he drunk?" Hegan whispered to Dede at the door.

She shook her head and showed him in.

"Good morning, Larry," was Daylight's greeting. "Sit
down and rest your feet. You sure seem to be in a flutter."

"I am," the little Irishman snapped back. "Grimshaw
and Hodgkins are going to smash if something isn't done
quick. Why didn't you come to the office? What are you
going to do about it?"

"Nothing," Daylight drawled lazily. "Except let them
smash, I guess — "

"But—"

"I've had no dealings with Grimshaw and Hodgkins.
I don't owe them anything. Besides, I'm going to smash
myself. Look here, Larry, you know me. You know when
I make up my mind I mean it. Well, I've sure made up
my mind. I'm tired of the whole game. I'm letting go
of it as fast as I can, and a smash is the quickest way to
let go."

Hegan stared at his chief, then passed his horror-stricken
gaze on to Dede, who nodded in sympathy.

"So let her smash, Larry," Daylight went on. "All
you've got to do is to protect yourself and all our friends.
Now you listen to me while I tell you what to do. Every-
thing is in good shape to do it. Nobody must get hurt.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 327

Everybody that stood by me must come through without
damage. All the back wages and salaries must be paid
pronto. All the money I've switched away from the water
company, the street cars, and the ferries must be switched
back. And you won't get hurt yourself none. Every
company you got stock in will come through — "

"You are crazy, Daylight!" the little lawyer cried out.
"This is all babbling lunacy. What is the matter with you?
You haven't been eating a drug or something?"

"I sure have," Daylight smiled reply. "And I'm now
coughing it up. I'm sick of living in a city and playing
business. I'm going off to the sunshine, and the country,
and the green grass. And Dede, here, is going with me.
So you've got the chance to be the first to congratulate me."

"Congratulate the — the devil 1 " Hegan spluttered. "I'm
not going to stand for this sort of foolishness."

"Oh, yes, you are; because if you don't there'll be a bigger
smash and some folks will most likely get hurt. You're
worth a million or more yourself, now, and if you listen
to me you come through with a whole skin. I want to get
hurt, and get hurt to the limit. That's what I'm looking
for, and there's no man or bunch of men can get between
me and what I'm looking for. Savvee, Hegan? Savvee?"

"What have you done to him?" Hegan snarled at Dede.

"Hold on there, Larry." For the first time Daylight's
voice was sharp, while all the old lines of cruelty in his face
stood forth. "Miss Mason is going to be my wife, and
while I don't mind your talking to her all you want, you've
got to use a different tone of voice or you'll be heading for
a hospital, which will sure be an unexpected sort of smash.
And let me tell you one other thing. This-all is my doing.
She says I'm crazy, too."

Hegan shook his head in speechless sadness and con-
tinued to stare.

"There'll be temporary receiverships, of course," Day-

328 BURNING DAYLIGHT

light advised; "but they won't bother none or last long.
What you must do immediately is to save everybody —
the men that have been letting their wages ride with me,
all the creditors, and all the concerns that have stood by.
There's the wad of land that New Jersey crowd has been
dickering for. They'll take all of a couple of thousand
acres and will close now if you give them half a chance.
That Fairmount section is the cream of it, and they'll dig
up as high as a thousand dollars an acre for a part of it.
That'll help out some. That five-hundred acre tract be-
yond, you'll be lucky if they pay two hundred an acre.'^

Dede, who had been scarcely listening, seemed abruptly
to make up her mind, and stepped forward where she con-
fronted the two men. Her face was pale, but set with de-
termination, so that Daylight, looking at it, was reminded
of the day when she first rode Bob.

"Wait," she said. "I want to say something. Elam,
if you do this insane thing, I won't marry you. I refuse to
marry you."

Hegan, in spite of his misery, gave her a quick, grateful
look.

"I'll take my chance on that," Daylight began.

"Wait!" she again interrupted. "And if you don't do
this thing, I will marry you."

"Let me get this proposition clear." DayHght spoke with
exasperating slowness and dehberation. "As I understand
it, if I keep right on at the business game, you'll sure marry
me? You'll marry me if I keep on working my head off
and drinking Martinis?"

After each question he paused, while she nodded an affir^
mation.

"And you'll marry me right away?"

"Yes."

"To-day? Now?"

"Yes."

BURNING DAYLIGHT 329

He pondered for a moment.

"No, little woman, I won't do it. It won't work, and you
know it yourself. I want you — all of you; and to get it
I'll have to give you all of myself, and there'll be darn little
of myself left over to give if I stay with the business game.
Why, Dede, with you on the ranch with me, I'm sure of you
— and of myself. I'm sure of you, anyrvay. You can
talk will or won't all you want, but you're sure going to
marry me just the same. And now, Larry, you'd better
be going. I'll be at the hotel in a little while, and since I'm
not going a step into the office again, bring all papers to
sign and the rest over to my rooms. And you can get me
on the 'phone there any time. This smash is going through.
Sawee? I'm quit and done."

He stood up as a sign for Hegan to go. The latter was
plainly stunned. He also rose to his feet, but stood look-
ing helplessly around.

"Sheer, downright, absolute insanity," he muttered.

Daylight put his hand on the other's shoulder.

"Buck up, Larry. You're always talking about the
wonders of human nature, and here I am giving you another
sample of it and you ain't appreciating it, I'm a bigger
dreamer than you are, that's all, and I'm sure dreaming
what's coming true. It's the biggest, best dream I ever had,
and I'm going after it to get it — "

"By losing all you've got," Hegan exploded at him.

"Sure — by losing all I've got that I don't want. But
I'm hanging on to them hundred and forty hair bridles just
the same. Now you'd better hustle out to Unwin and Har-
rison and get on down town. I'll be at the hotel, and you
can call me up any time."

He turned to Dede as soon as Hegan was gone, and took
her by the hand.

"And now, little woman, you needn't come to the office
any more. Consider yourself discharged. And remember,

330 BURNING DAYLIGHT

I was your employer, so you've got to come to me for a
recommendation, and if you're not real good, I won't give
you one. In the meantime, you just rest up and think about
what things you want to pack, because we'll just about
have to set up housekeeping on your stuff — leastways, the
front part of the house."

"But, Elam, I won't, I won't! If you do this mad thing
I never will marry you."

She attempted to take her hand away, but he closed on it
with a protecting, fatherly clasp.

''Will you be straight and honest? All right, here goes.
Which would you sooner have — me and the money, or me
and the ranch?"

"But — " she began.

"No buts. Me and the money?"

She did not answer.

"Me and the ranch?"

Still she did not answer, and still he was undisturbed.

"You see, I know your answer, Dede, and there's nothing
more to say. Here's where you and I quit and hit the high
places for Sonoma. You make up your mind what you
want to pack, and I'll have some men out here in a couple
of days to do it for you. It will be about the last work
anybody else ever does for us. You and I will do the un-
packing and the arranging ourselves."

She made a last attempt.

"Elam, won't you be reasonable? There is time to re-
consider. I can telephone down and catch Mr. Hegan as
soon as he reaches the office — "

"Why, I'm the only reasonable man in the bunch right
now," he rejoined. "Look at me — as calm as you please,
and as happy as a king, while they're fluttering around Hke
a lot of cranky hens whose heads are liable to be cut off."

"I'd cry, if I thought it would do any good," she threat-
ened.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 33 1

"In which case I reckon I'd have to hold you in my arms
some more and sort of soothe you down," he threatened
back. "And now I'm going to go. It's too bad you got
rid of Mab. You could have sent her up to the ranch. But
I'll see you've got a mare to ride of some sort or other."

As he stood at the top of the steps, leaving, she said: —

"You needn't send those men. There will be no packing,
because I am not going to marry you."

"I'm not a bit scared," he answered, and went down the
steps.

CHAPTER XXIV

Three days later, Daylight rode to Berkeley in his red
car. It was for the last time, for on the morrow the big
machine passed into another's possession. It had been a
strenuous three days, for his smash had been the biggest the
panic had precipitated in California. The papers had been
filled with it, and a great cry of indignation had gone up
from the very men who later found that Daylight had fully
protected their interests. It was these facts, coming slowly
to light, that gave rise to the widely repeated charge that
Daylight had gone insane. It was the unanimous convic-
tion among business men that no sane man could possibly
behave in such fashion. On the other hand, neither his
prolonged steady drinking nor his affair with Dede became
public, so the only conclusion attainable was that the wild
financier from Alaska had gone lunatic. And Daylight had
grinned and confirmed the suspicion by refusing to see the
reporters.

He halted the automobile before Dede's door, and met
her with his same rushing tactics, enclosing her in his arms
before a word could be uttered. Not until afterward, when
she had recovered herself from him and got him seated, did
he begin to speak.

"I've done it," he announced. "You've seen the news-
papers, of course. I'm plumb cleaned out, and I've just
called around to find out what day you feel like starting
for Glen Ellen. It'll have to be soon, for it's real expensive
living in Oakland these days. My board at the hotel is

332

BURNING DAYLIGHT 333

only paid to the end of the week, and I can't afford to stay-
on after that. And beginning with to-morrow I've got to
use the street cars, and they sure eat up the nickels."

He paused, and waited, and looked at her. Indecision
and trouble showed on her face. Then the smile he knew so
well began to grow on her lips and in her eyes, until she
threw back her head and laughed in the old forthright
boyish way.

"When are those men coming to pack for me?" she asked.

And again she laughed and simulated a vain attempt to
escape his bearlike arms.

"Dear Elam," she whispered; "dear Elam." And of her-
self, for the first time, she kissed him.

She ran her hand caressingly through his hair.

"Your eyes are all gold right now," he said. "I can look
in them and tell just how much you love me."

"They have been all gold for you, Elam, for a long time.
I think, on our little ranch, they will always be all gold."

"Your hair has gold in it, too, a sort of fiery gold." He
turned her face suddenly and held it between his hands and
looked long into her eyes. "And your eyes were full of gold
only the other day, when you said you wouldn't marry me."

She nodded and laughed.

"You would have your will," she confessed. "But I
couldn't be a party to such madness. All that money was
yours, not mine. But I was loving you all the time, Elam,
for the great big boy you are, breaking the thirty-million toy
with which you had grown tired of playing. And when I
said no, I knew all the time it was yes. And I am sure that
my eyes were golden all the time. I had only one fear, and
that was that you would fail to lose everything. Because,
dear, I knew I should marry you anyway, and I did so want
just you and the ranch and Bob and Wolf and those horse-
hair bridles. Shall I tell you a secret? As soon as you left,
I telephoned the man to whom I sold Mab."

334 BURNING DAYLIGHT

She hid her face against his breast for an instant, and
then looked at him again, gladly radiant.

"You see, Elam, in spite of what my lips said, my mind
was made up then, I — I simply had to marry you. But
I was praying you would succeed in losing everything. And
so I tried to find what had become of Mab. But the man
had sold her and did not know what had become of her.
You see, I wanted to ride with you over the Glen Ellen
hills, on Mab and you on Bob, just as I had ridden with you
through the Piedmont hills."

The disclosure of Mab's whereabouts trembled on Day-
Kght's lips, but he forbore.

"I'll promise you a mare that you'll like just as much as
Mab," he said.

But Dede shook her head, and on that one point refused
to be comforted.

"Now, I've got an idea," Daylight said, hastening to get
the conversation on less perilous ground. "We're running
away from cities, and you have no kith nor kin, so it don't
seem exactly right that we should start off by getting mar-
ried in a city. So here's the idea: I'll run up to the ranch
and get things in shape around the house and give the care-
taker his walking-papers. You follow me in a couple of
days, coming on the morning train. I'll have the preacher
fixed and waiting. And here's another idea. You bring your
riding togs in a suit case. And as soon as the ceremony's
over, you can go to the hotel and change. Then out you
come, and you find me waiting with a couple of horses, and
we'll ride over the landscape so as you can see the prettiest
parts of the ranch the first thing. And she's sure pretty,
that ranch. And now that it's settled, I'll be waiting for
you at the morning train day after to-morrow."

Dede blushed as she spoke.

"You are such a hurricane."

"Well, ma'am," he drawled, "I sure hate to burn daylight.

I

BURNING DAYLIGHT 335

And you and I have burned a heap of daylight. We've
been scandalously extravagant. We might have been mar-
ried years ago."

Two day^ later, Daylight stood waiting outside the little
Glen Ellen hotel. The ceremony was over, and he had left
Dede to go inside and change into her riding-habit while he
brought the horses. He held them now, Bob and Mab, and
in the shadow of the watering-trough Wolf lay and looked
on. Already two days of ardent California sun had touched
with new fires the ancient bronze in Daylight's face. But
warmer still was the glow that came into his cheeks and
burned in his eyes as he saw Dede coming out the door,
riding-whip in hand, clad in the familiar corduroy skirt and
leggings of the old Piedmont days. There was warmth and
glow in her own face as she answered his gaze and glanced
on past him to the horses. Then she saw Mab. But her
gaze leaped back to the man.

"Oh, Elam!" she breathed.

It was almost a prayer, but a prayer that included a
thousand meanings. Dayhght strove to feign sheepishness,
but his heart was singing too wild a song for mere playful-
ness. All things had been in the naming of his name —
reproach, refined away by gratitude, and all compounded
of joy and love.

She stepped forward and caressed the mare, and again
turned and looked at the man, and breathed: —

"Oh, ElamJ"

And all that was in her voice was in her eyes, and in them
Daylight glimpsed a profundity deeper and wider than any
speech or thought — the whole vast inarticulate mystery
and wonder of sex and love.

Again he strove for playfulness of speech, but it was too
great a moment for even love facetiousness to enter in.
Neither spoke. She gathered the reins, and, bending. Day-

336 BURNING DAYLIGHT

light received her foot in his hand. She sprang, as he Ufted,
and gained the saddle. The next moment he was mounted
and beside her, and, with Wolf sliding along ahead in his
typical wolf-trot, they went up the hill that led out of town
— two lovers on two chestnut sorrel steeds, riding out
and away to honeymoon through the warm summer day.
Daylight felt himself drunken as with wine. He was at
the topmost pinnacle of life. Higher than this no man
could climb nor had ever climbed. It was his day of days,
his love-time and his mating-time, and all crowned by this
virginal possession of a mate who had said "Oh, Elam,"
as she had said it, and looked at him out of her soul as
she had looked.

They cleared the crest of the hill, and he watched the joy
mount in her face as she gazed on the sweet, fresh land.
He pointed out the group of heavily wooded knolls across
the rolling stretches of ripe grain.

"They're ours," he said. "And they're only a sample
of the ranch. Wait till you see the big caiion. There are
'coons down there, and back here on the Sonoma there
are mink. And deer! — why, that mountain's sure thick
with them, and I reckon we can scare up a mountain-
lion if we want to real hard. And, say, there's a little
meadow — well, I ain't going to tell you another word.
You wait and see for yourself."

They turned in at the gate, where the road to the clay-
pit crossed the fields, and both sniffed with delight as the
warm aroma of the ripe hay rose in their nostrils. As on his
first visit, the larks were uttering their rich notes and flutter-
ing up before the horses until the woods and the flower-
scattered glades were reached, when the larks gave way to
blue jays and woodpeckers.

"We're on our land now," he said, as they left the hay-
field behind. "It runs right across country over the rough-
est parts. Just you wait and see."

BURNING DAYLIGHT 337

As on the first day, he turned aside from the clay-pit and
worked through the woods to the left, passing the first
spring and jumping the horses over the ruined remnants of
the stake-and-rider fence. From here on, Dede was in an
unending ecstasy. By the spring that gurgled among the
redwoods grew another great wild lily, bearing on its slender
stalk the prodigious outburst of white waxen bells. This
time he did not dismount, but led the way to the deep
canon where the stream had cut a passage among the knolls.
He had been at work here, and a steep and slippery horse
trail now crossed the creek, so they rode up beyond, through
the sombre redwood twilight, and, farther on, through a
tangled wood of oak and madrofio. They came to a small
clearing of several acres, where the grain stood waist high.

"Ours," Daylight said.

She bent in her saddle, plucked a stalk of the ripe grain,
and nibbled it between her teeth.

"Sweet mountain hay," she cried. "The kind Mab likes."

And throughout the ride she continued to utter cries and
ejaculations of surprise and delight.

"And you never told me all this!" she reproached him,
as they looked across the little clearing and over the de-
scending slopes of woods to the great curving sweep of
Sonoma Valley.

"Come," he said; and they turned and went back through
the forest shade, crossed the stream and came to the lily by
the spring.

Here, also, where the way led up the tangle of the steep
hill, he had cut a rough horse trail. As they forced their
way up the zigzags, they caught glimpses out and down
through the sea of foliage. Yet always were their farthest
glimpses stopped by the closing vistas of green, and, yet
always, as they climbed, did the forest roof arch overhead,
with only here and there rifts that permitted shattered
shafts of sunlight to penetrate. And all about them were

33^ BURNING DAYLIGHT

ferns, a score of varieties, from the tiny gold-backs and
maidenhair to huge brakes six and eight feet tall. Below
them, as they mounted, they glimpsed great gnarled trunks
and branches of ancient trees, and above them were similar
great gnarled branches.

Dede stopped her horse and sighed with the beauty of it
all.

"It is as if we are swimmers," she said, "rising out of a
deep pool of green tranquillity. Up above is the sky and
the sun, but this is a pool, and we are fathoms deep."

They started their horses, but a dog-tooth violet, shoul-
dering amongst the maidenhair, caught her eye and made
her rein in again.

They cleared the crest and emerged from the pool as if
into another world, for now they were in the thicket of
velvet-trunked young madronos and looking down the open,
sun-washed hillside, across the nodding grasses, to the drifts
of blue and white nemophilae that carpeted the tiny meadow
on either side the tiny stream. Dede clapped her hands.

"It's sure prettier than office furniture," Daylight re-
marked.

"It sure is," she answered.

And Daylight, who knew his weakness in the use of the
particular word sure, knew that she had repeated it de-
liberately and with love.

They crossed the stream and took the cattle track over
the low rocky hill and through the scrub forest of manzanita,
till they emerged on the next tiny valley with its meadow-
bordered streamlet.

"If we don't run into some quail pretty soon, I'll be sur-
prised some," Daylight said.

And as the words left his lips there was a wild series of
explosive thrummings as the old quail arose from all about
Wolf, while the young ones scuttled for safety and dis-
appeared miraculously before the spectators' very eyes.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 339

He showed her the hawk's nest he had found in the light-
ning-shattered top of the redwood, and she discovered a
wood-rat's nest which he had not seen before. Next they
took the old wood-road and came out on the dozen acres of
clearing where the wine grapes grew in the wine-colored
volcanic soil. Then they followed the cow-path through
more woods and thickets and scattered glades, and dropped
down the hillside to where the farm-house, poised on the
lip of the big caiion, came into view only when they were
right upon it.

Dede stood on the wide porch that ran the length of the
house while Daylight tied the horses. To Dede it was
very quiet. It was the dry, warm, breathless calm of Cali-
fornia midday. All the world seemed dozing. From some-
where pigeons were cooing lazily. With a deep sigh of
satisfaction, Wolf, who had drunk his fill at all the streams
along the way, dropped down in the cool shadow of the
porch. She heard the footsteps of Daylight returning, and
caught her breath with a quick intake. He took her hand
in his, and, as he turned the door-knob, felt her hesitate.
Then he put his arm around her; the door swung open, and
together they passed in.

CHAPTER XXV

Many persons, themselves city-bred and city-reared,
have fled to the soil and succeeded in winning great happi-
ness. In such cases they have succeeded only by going
through a process of savage disillusionment. But with Dede
and Daylight it was different. They had both been born on
the soil, and they knew its naked simplicities and rawer
ways. They were like two persons, after far wandering,
who had merely come home again. There was less of the
unexpected in their dealings with nature, while theirs was
all the delight of reminiscence. What might appear sordid
and squalid to the fastidiously reared, was to them emi-
nently wholesome and natural. The commerce of nature
was to them no unknown and untried trade. They made
fewer mistakes. They already knew, and it was a joy to
remember what they had forgotten.

And another thing they learned was that it was easier for
one who has gorged at the flesh-pots to content himself with
the meagreness of a crust, than for one who has known only
the crust. Not that their Hfe was meagre. It was that
they found keener delights and deeper satisfactions in little
things. Daylight, who had played the game in its biggest
and most fantastic aspects, found that here, on the slopes
of Sonoma Mountain, it was still the same old game. Man
had still work to perform, forces to combat, obstacles to
overcome. WTien he experimented in a small way at rais-
ing a few pigeons for market, he found no less zest in cal-
culating in squabs than formerly when he had calculated
in millions. Achievement was no less achievement, while

340

BURNING DAYLIGHT 34I

the process of it seemed more rational and received the
sanction of his reason.

The domestic cat that had gone wild and that preyed on
his pigeons, he found, by the comparative standard, to be of
no less paramount menace than a Charles Klinkner in the
field of finance, trying to raid him for several millions. The
hawks and weasels and 'coons were so many Dowsetts, Let-
tons, and Guggenhammers that struck at him secretly.
The sea of wild vegetation that tossed its surf against the
boundaries of all his clearings and that sometimes crept in
and flooded in a single week was no mean enemy to contend
with and subdue. His fat-soiled vegetable-garden in the
nook of hills that failed of its best was a problem of engross-
ing importance, and when he had solved it by putting in
drain-tile, the joy of the achievement was ever with him. He
never worked in it and found the soil unpacked and tract-
able without experiencing the thrill of accomplishment.

There was the matter of the plumbing. He was enabled to
purchase the materials through a lucky sale of a number of
his hair bridles. The work he did himself, though more
than once he was forced to call in Dede to hold tight with a
pipe-wrench. And in the end, when the bath-tub and the
stationary tubs were installed and in working order, he
could scarcely tear himself away from the contemplation of
what his hands had wrought. The first evening, missing
him, Dede sought and found him, lamp in hand, staring with
silent glee at the tubs. He rubbed his hand over their
smooth wooden lips and laughed aloud, and was as shame-
faced as any boy when she caught him thus secretly exult-
ing in his own prowess.

It was this adventure in wood-working and plumbing that
brought about the building of the little workshop, where he
slowly gathered a collection of loved tools. And he, who in
the old days, out of his millions, could purchase immediately
whatever he might desire, learned the new joy of the posses-

342 BURNING DAYLIGHT

sion that follows upon rigid economy and desire long
delayed. He waited three months before daring the extrava-
gance of a Yankee screw-driver, and his glee in the marvel-
lous little mechanism was so keen that Dede conceived
forthright a great idea. For six months she saved her egg-
money, which was hers by right of allotment, and on his
birthday presented him with a turning-lathe of wonderful
simplicity and multifarious efficiencies. And their mutual
delight in the tool, which was his, was only equalled by their
delight in Mab's first foal, which was Dede's special private
property.

It was not until the second summer that Daylight built the
huge fireplace that outrivalled Ferguson's across the valley.
For all these things took time, and Dede and Daylight were
not in a hurry. Theirs was not the mistake of the average
city-dweller who flees in ultra-modern innocence to the soil.
They did not essay too much. Neither did they have a
mortgage to clear, nor did they desire wealth. They wanted
little in the way of food, and they had no rent to pay. So
they planned unambitiously, reserving their lives for each
other and for the compensations of country-dwelling from
which the average country-dweller is barred. From Fer-
guson's example, too, they profited much. Here was a man
who asked for but the plainest fare; who ministered to his
own simple needs with his own hands ; who worked out as a
laborer only when he needed money to buy books and maga-
zines; and who saw to it that the major portion of his waking
time was for enjoyment. He ioved to loaf long afternoons
in the shade with his books or to be up with the dawn and
away over the hills.

On occasion he accompanied Dede and Daylight on deer
hunts through the wild caiions and over the rugged steeps of
Hood Mountain, though more often Dede and Daylight were
out alone. This riding was one of their chief joys. Every
wrinkle and crease in the hills they explored, and they came

BURNING DAYLIGHT 343

to know every secret spring and hidden dell in the whole
surrounding wall of the valley. They learned all the trails
and cow-paths; but nothing delighted them more than to
essay the roughest and most impossible rides, where they
were glad to crouch and crawl along the narrowest deer-runs,
Bob and Mab struggling and forcing their way along behind.

Back from their rides they brought the seeds and bulbs of
wild flowers to plant in favoring nooks on the ranch. Along
the foot trail which led down the side of the big cafion to
the intake of the water-pipe, they established their fernery.
It was not a formal affair, and the ferns were left to them-
selves. Dede and Daylight merely introduced new ones
from time to time, changing them from one wild habitat to
another. It was the same with the wild lilac, which Day-
light had sent to him from Mendocino County. It became
part of the wildness of the ranch, and, after being helped for
a season, was left to its own devices. They used to gather
the seeds of the Cahfornia poppy and scatter them over their
own acres, so that the orange-colored blossoms spangled the
fields of mountain hay and prospered in flaming drifts in
the fence corners and along the edges of the clearings.

Dede, who had a fondness for cattails, established a
fringe of them along the meadow stream, where they were
left to fight it out with the water-cress. And when the
latter was threatened with extinction. Daylight developed
one of the shaded springs into his water-cress garden and
declared war upon any invading cattail. On her wedding
day Dede had discovered a long dog-tooth violet by the
zigzag trail above the redwood spring, and here she con-
tinued to plant more and more. The open hillside above the
tiny meadow became a colony of Mariposa lilies. This was
due mainly to her efforts, while Daylight, who rode with a
short-handled axe on his saddle-bow, cleared the little man-
zanita wood on the rocky hill of all its dead and dying and
overcrowded weaklings.

344 BURNING DAYLIGHT

They did not labor at these tasks. Nor were they tasks.
Merely in passing, they paused, from time to time, and lent
a hand to nature. These flowers and shrubs grew of them-
selves, and their presence was no violation of the natural
environment. The man and the woman made no efifort to
introduce a flower or shrub that did not of its own right be-
long. Nor did they protect them from their enemies. The
horses and the colts and the cows and the calves ran at pas-
ture among them or over them, and flower or shrub had to
take its chance. But the beasts were not noticeably destruc-
tive, for they were few in number and the ranch was large.
On the other hand. Daylight could have taken in fully a
dozen horses to pasture, which would have earned him a
dollar and a half per head per month. But this he refused
to do, because of the devastation such close pasturing would
produce.

Ferguson came over to celebrate the housewarming that
followed the achievement of the great stone fireplace. Day-
light had ridden across the valley more than once to confer
with him about the undertaking, and he was the only other
present at the sacred function of lighting the first fire. By
removing a partition, Dayhght had thrown two rooms into
one, and this was the big living-room where Dede's treasures
were placed — her books, and paintings and photographs,
her piano, the Crouched Venus, the chafing-dish and all its
glittering accessories. Already, in addition to her own wild-
animal skins, were those of deer and coyote and one moun-
tain-lion which Daylight had killed. The tanning he had
done himself, slowly and laboriously, in frontier fashion.

He handed the match to Dede, who struck it and lighted
the fire. The crisp manzanita wood crackled as the flames
leaped up and assailed the dry bark of the larger logs. Then
she leaned in the shelter of her husband's arm, and the three
stood and looked in breathless suspense. When Ferguson
gave judgment, it was with beaming face and extended hand.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 345

"She draws ! By crickey, she draws ! " he cried.

He shook Daylight's hand ecstatically, and Daylight
shook his with equal fervor, and, bending, kissed Dede on
the lips. They were as exultant over the success of their
simple handiwork as any great captain at astonishing vic-
tory. In Ferguson's eyes was actually a suspicious moisture,
while the woman pressed even more closely against the man
whose achievement it was. He caught her up suddenly in
his arms and whirled her away to the piano, cr3dng out:
"Come on, Dede! The Gloria! The Gloria r

And while the flames rose in the fireplace that worked,
the triumphant strains of the Twelfth Mass rolled forth.

CHAPTER XXVI

Daylight had made no assertion of total abstinence,
though he had not taken a drink for months after the day
he resolved to let his business go to smash. Soon he
proved himself strong enough to dare to take a drink with-
out taking a second. On the other hand, with his coming
to live in the country, had passed all desire and need for
drink. He felt no yearning for it, and even forgot that it
existed. Yet he refused to be afraid of it, and in town, on
occasion, when invited by the storekeeper, would reply:
"All right, son. If my taking a drink will make you happy,
here goes. Whiskey for mine."

But such a drink begat no desire for a second. It made no
impression. He was too profoundly strong to be affected by
a thimbleful. As he had prophesied to Dede, Burning Day-
light, the city financier, had died a quick death on the ranch,
and his younger brother, the DayUght from Alaska, had
taken his place. The threatened inundation of fat had sub-
sided, and all his old-time Indian leanness and litheness
of muscle had returned. So, likewise, did the old slight
hollows in his cheeks come back. For him they indicated
the pink of physical condition. He became the acknowl-
edged strong man of Sonoma Valley, the heaviest lifter and
hardest winded among a husky race of farmer folk. And
once a year he celebrated his birthday in the old-fashioned
frontier way, challenging all the valley to come up the hill
to the ranch and be put on its back. And a fair portion of
the valley responded, brought the women-folk and children
along, and picknicked for the day.

346

BURNING DAYLIGHT 347

At first, when in need of ready cash, he had followed
Ferguson's example of working at day's labor; but he was
not long in gravitating to a form of work that was more
stimulating and more satisfying, and that allowed him even
more time for Dede and the ranch and the perpetual riding
through the hills. Having been challenged by the black-
smith, in a spirit of banter, to attempt the breaking of a
certain incorrigible colt, he succeeded so signally as to earn
quite a reputation as a horse-breaker. And soon he was
able to earn whatever money he desired at this, to him,
agreeable work.

A sugar king, whose breeding farm and training stables
were at Caliente, three miles away, sent for him in time of
need, and, before the year was out, offered him the manage-
ment of the stables. But Daylight smiled and shook his
head. Furthermore, he refused to undertake the breaking
of as many animals as were offered, "I'm sure not going
to die from overwork," he assured Dede; and he accepted
such work only when he had to have money. Later, he
fenced off a small run in the pasture, where, from time to
time, he took in a limited number of incorrigibles.

"We've got the ranch and each other," he told his wife,
"and I'd sooner ride with you to Hood Mountain any day
than earn forty dollars. You can't buy sunsets, and loving
wives, and cool spring water, and such folderols, with forty
dollars; and forty million dollars can't buy back for me one
day that I didn't ride with you to Hood Mountain."

His life was eminently wholesome and natural. Early to
bed, he slept like an infant and was up with the dawn.
Always with something to do, and with a thousand little
things that enticed but did not clamor, he was himself never
overdone. Nevertheless, there were times when both he and
Dede were not above confessing tiredness at bedtime after
seventy or eighty miles in the saddle. Sometimes, when he
had accumulated a little money, and when the season fav-

348 BURNING DAYLIGHT

ored, they woulcj mount their horses, with saddle-bags
behind, and ride away over the wall of the valley and down
into the other valleys. When night fell, they put up at the
first convenient farm or village, and on the morrow they
would ride on, without definite plan, merely continuing to
ride on, day after day, until their money gave out and they
were compelled to return. On such trips they would be
gone anywhere from a week to ten days or two weeks, and
once they managed a three weeks' trip. They even planned
ambitiously some day when they were disgracefully pros-
perous, to ride all the way up to Daylight's boyhood home
in Eastern Oregon, stopping on the way at Dede's girlhood
home in Siskiyou. And all the joys of anticipation were
theirs a thousand times as they contemplated the detailed
deUghts of this grand adventure.

One day, stopping to mail a letter at the Glen Ellen post-
office, they were hailed by the blacksmith.

"Say, Daylight," he said, "a young fellow named Slosson
sends you his regards. He came through in an auto, on the
way to Santa Rosa. He wanted to know if you didn't live
hereabouts, but the crowd with him was in a hurry. So he
sent you his regards and said to tell you he'd taken your
advice and was still going on breaking his own record.'*

Daylight had long since told Dede of the incident.

"Slosson?" he meditated, "Slosson? That must be the
hammer-thrower. He put my hand down twice, the young
scamp." He turned suddenly to Dede. "Say, it's only
twelve miles to Santa Rosa, and the horses are fresh."

She divined what was in his mind, of which his twinkling
eyes and sheepish, boyish grin gave sufficient advertise-
ment, and she smiled and nodded acquiescence.

"We'll cut across by Bennett Valley," he said. "It's
nearer that way."

There was little difficulty, once in Santa Rosa, of finding
Slosson. He and his party had registered at the Oberlin

BURNING DAYLIGHT 349

Hotel, and Daylight encountered the young hammer-
thrower himself in the office.

"Look here, son," Daylight announced, as soon as he
had introduced Dede, "I've come to go you another flutter
at that hand game. Here's a likely place."

Slosson smiled and accepted. The two men faced each
other, the elbows of their right arms on the counter, the
hands clasped. Slosson's hand quickly forced backward
and down.

"You're the first man that ever succeeded in doing it,"
he said. "Let's try it again."

"Sure," Daylight answered. "And don't forget, son, that
you're the first man that put mine down. That's why I lit
out after you to-day."

Again they clasped hands, and again Slosson's hand went
down. He was a broad-shouldered, heavy-muscled young
giant, at least half a head taller than Dayhght, and he
frankly expressed his chagrin and asked for a third trial.
This time he steeled himself to the effort, and for a moment
the issue was in doubt. With flushed face and set teeth he
met the other's strength till his crackling muscles failed him.
The air exploded sharply from his tensed lungs, as he re-
laxed in surrender, and the hand dropped Umply down.

"You're too many for me," he confessed. "I only hope
you'll keep out of the hammer-throwing game."

Daylight laughed and shook his head.

"We might compromise, and each stay in his own class.
You stick to hammer-throwing, and I'll go on turning down
hands."

But Slosson refused to accept defeat.

"Say," he called out, as Daylight and Dede, astride their
horses, were preparing to depart. "Say — do you mind if I
look you up next year? I'd like to tackle you again."

"Sure, son. You're welcome to a flutter any time.
Though I give you fair warning that you'll have to go

350 BURNING DAYLIGHT

some. You'll have to train up, for I'm ploughing and
chopping wood and breaking colts these days."

Now and again, on the way home, Dede could hear her
big boy-husband chuckling gleefully. As they halted their
horses on the top of the divide out of Bennett Valley, in
order to watch the sunset, he ranged alongside and slipped
his arm around her waist.

"Little woman," he said, "you're sure responsible for it
all. And I leave it to you, if all the money in creation is
worth as much as one arm hke that when it's got a sweet
little woman hke this to go around."

For of all his delights in the new life, Dede was his great-
est. As he explained to her more than once, he had been
afraid of love all his life only in the end to come to find it
the greatest thing in the world. Not alone were the two
well mated, but in coming to live on the ranch they had
selected the best soil in which their love would prosper. In
spite of her books and music, there was in her a wholesome
simplicity and love of the open and natural, while Daylight,
in every fibre of him, was essentially an open-air man.

Of one thing in Dede, Daylight never got over marvelling
about, and that was her efficient hands -— the hands that he
had first seen taking down flying shorthand notes and tick-
ing away at the typewriter; the hands that were firm to
hold a magnificent brute like Bob, that wonderfully flashed
over the keys of the piano, that were unhesitant in house-
hold tasks, and that were twin miracles to caress and to run
rippling fingers through his hair. But Daylight was not
unduly uxorious. He lived his man's hfe just as she Hved
her woman's life. There was proper division of labor in
the work they individually performed. But the whole was
entwined and woven into a fabric of mutual interest and
consideration. He was as deeply interested in her cooking
and her music as she was in his agricultural adventures in
the vegetable garden. And he, who resolutely dechned to

BURNING DAYLIGHT 351

die of overwork, saw to it that she should likewise escape
so dire a risk.

In this connection, using his man's judgment and putting
his man's foot down, he refused to allow her to be burdened
with the entertaining of guests. For guests they had, es-
pecially in the warm, long summers, and usually they were
her friends from the city, who were put to camp in tents
which they cared for themselves, and where, like true
campers, they had also to cook for themselves. Perhaps
only in California, where everybody knows camp life, would
such a programme have been possible. But Daylight's
steadfast contention was that his wife should not become
cook, waitress, and chambermaid because she did not hap-
pen to possess a household of servants. On the other hand,
chafing-dish suppers in the big living-room for their camp-
ing guests were a common happening, at which times Day-
light allotted them their chores and saw that they were per-
formed. For one who stopped only for the night it was
different. Likewise it was different with her brother, back
from Germany, and again able to sit a horse. On his vaca-
tions he became the third in the family, and to him was
given the building of the fires, the sweeping, and the wash-
ing of the dishes.

Daylight devoted himself to the lightening of Dede's
labors, and it was her brother who incited him to utilize the
splendid water-power of the ranch that was running to
waste. It required Daylight's breaking of extra horses
to pay for the materials, and the brother devoted a three
weeks' vacation to assisting, and together they installed a
Pelton wheel. Besides sawing wood and turning his lathe
and grindstone. Daylight connected the power with the
churn; but his great triumph was when he put his arm
around Dede's waist and led her out to inspect a washing-
machine, run by the Pelton wheel, which really worked
and really washed clothes.

352 BtJRNING DAYLIGHT

Dede and Ferguson, between them, after a pvatient
struggle, taught Daylight poetry, so that in the end he might
have been often seen, sitting slack in the saddle and drop-
ping down the mountain trails through the sun-flecked
woods, chanting aloud Kipling's "Tomlinson," or, when
sharpening his axe, singing into the whirhng grindstone
Henley's "Song of the Sword." Not that he ever became
consummately literary in the way his two teachers were.
Beyond "Fra Lippo Lippi" and "Caliban and Setebos," he
found nothing in Browning, while George Meredith was
ever his despair. It was of his own initiative, however, that
he invested in a violin, and practised so assiduously that in
time he and Dede beguiled many a happy hour playing
together after night had fallen.

So all went well with this well-mated pair. Time never
dragged. There were always new wonderful mornings and
still cool twilights at the end of day; and ever a thousand
interests claimed him, and his interests were shared by her.
More thoroughly than he knew, had he come to a compre-
hension of the relativity of things. In this new game he
played he found in little things all the intensities of grati-
fication and desire that he had found in the frenzied big
things when he was a power and rocked half a continent
with the fury of the blows he struck. With head and hand,
at risk of life and limb, to bit and break a wild colt and win
it to the service of man, was to him no less great an achieve-
ment. And this new table on which he played the game
was clean. Neither lying, nor cheating, nor hypocrisy was
here. The other game had made for decay and death,
while this new one made for clean strength and life. And
so he was content, with Dede at his side, to watch the pro-
cession of the days and seasons from the farm-house
perched on the caiion-lip; to ride through crisp frosty
mornings or under burning summer suns; and to shelter
in the big room where blazed the logs in the fireplace he

BURNING DAYLIGHT 353

had built, while outside the world shuddered and struggled
in the storm-clasp of a southeaster.

Once only Dede asked him if he ever regretted, and his
answer was to crush her in his arms and smother her lips
with his. His answer, a minute later, took speech.

"Little woman, even if you did cost thirty millions, you
are sure the cheapest necessity of life I ever indulged in."
And then he added, "Yes, I do have one regret, and a
monstrous big one, too. I'd sure like to have the winning
of you all over again. I'd like to go sneaking around the
Piedmont hills looking for you. I'd like to meander into
those rooms of yours at Berkeley for the first time. And
there's no use talking, I'm plumb soaking with regret that
I can't put my arms around you again that time you leaned
your head on my breast and cried in the wind and rain."

CHAPTER XXVII

But there came the day, one year, in early April, when
Dede sat in an easy chair on the porch, sewing on certain
small garments, while Daylight read aloud to her. It was
in the afternoon, and a bright sun was shining down on a
world of new green. Along the irrigation channels of the
vegetable garden streams of water were flowing, and now
and again Daylight broke off from his reading to run out
and change the flow of water. Also, he was teasingly inter-
ested in the certain small garments on which Dede worked,
while she was radiantly happy over them, though at times,
when his tender fun was too insistent, she was rosily con-
fused or affectionately resentful.

From where they sat they could look out over the world.
Like the curve of a scimitar blade, the Valley of the Moon
stretched before them, dotted with farm-houses and varied
by pasture-lands, hay-fields, and vineyards. Beyond rose
the wall of the valley, every crease and wrinkle of which
Dede and Daylight knew, and at one place, where the sun
struck squarely, the white dump of the abandoned mine
burned like a jewel. In the foreground, in the paddock by
the barn, was Mab, full of pretty anxieties for the early
spring foal that staggered about her on tottery legs. The
air shimmered with heat, and altogether it was a lazy, bask-
ing day. Quail whistled to their young from the thicketed
hillside behind the house. There was a gentle cooing of
pigeons, and from the green depths of the big caiion arose
the sobbing wood note of a mourning dove. Once, there
was a warning chorus from the foraging hens and a wild

354

BURNING DAYLIGHT 355

rush for cover, as a hawk, high in the blue, cast its drifting
shadow along the ground.

It was this, perhaps, that aroused old hunting memories
in Wolf. At any rate, Dede and Daylight became aware of
excitement in the paddock, and saw harmlessly reenacted
a grim old tragedy of the Younger World. Curiously eager,
velvet-footed and silent as a ghost, sliding and gliding
and crouching, the dog that was mere domesticated wolf
stalked the enticing bit of young life that Mab had brought
so recently into the world. And the mare, her own ancient
instincts aroused and quivering, circled ever between the
foal and this menace of the wild young days when all her
ancestry had known fear of him and his hunting brethren.
Once, she whirled and tried to kick him, but usually she
strove to strike him with her fore-hoofs, or rushed upon
him with open mouth and ears laid back in an effort to
crunch his backbone between her teeth. And the wolf-dog,
with ears flattened down and crouching, would slide silkily
away, only to circle up to the foal from the other side and
give cause to the mare for new alarm. Then Daylight,
urged on by Dede's soHcitude, uttered a low threatening
cry; and Wolf, drooping and sagging in all the body of him
in token of his instant return to man's allegiance, slunk off
behind the barn.

It was a few minutes later that Daylight, breaking off
from his reading to change the streams of irrigation, found
that the water had ceased flowing. He shouldered a pick
and shovel, took a hammer and a pipe-wrench from the
tool-house, and returned to Dede on the porch.

"I reckon I'll have to go down and dig the pipe out," he
told her. "It's that slide that's threatened all winter. I
guess she's come down at last."

"Don't you read ahead, now," he warned, as he passed
around the house and took the trail that led down the wall
of the canon.

356 BtTRNING DAYLIGHT

Halfway down the trail, he came upon the slide. It was
a small affair, only a few tons of earth and crumbling rock;
but, starting from fifty feet above, it had struck the water-
pipe with force sufficient to break it at a connection. Before
proceeding to work, he glanced up the path of the slide, and
he glanced with the eye of the earth-trained miner. And
he saw what made his eyes startle and cease for the moment
from questing farther.

"Hello," he communed aloud, "look who's here."

His glance moved on up the steep broken surface, and
across it from side to side. Here and there, in places, small
twisted manzanitas were rooted precariously, but in the
main, save for weeds and grass, that portion of the cafion
was bare. There were signs of a surface that had shifted
often as the rains poured a flow of rich eroded soil from
above over the lip of the caiion.

"A true fissure vein, or I never saw one," he proclaimed
softly.

And as the old hunting instincts had aroused that day in
the wolf-dog, so in him recrudesced all the old hot desire
of gold-hunting. Dropping the hammer and pipe-wrench,
but retaining pick and shovel, he climbed up the slide to
where a vague line of out-jutting but mostly soil-covered
rock could be seen. It was all but indiscernible, but his
practised eye had sketched the hidden formation which it
signified. Here and there, along this wall of the vein, he
attacked the crumbling rock with the pick and shovelled
the encumbering soil away. Several times he examined
this rock. So soft was some of it that he could break it in
his fingers. Shifting a dozen feet higher up, he again at-
tacked with pick and shovel. And this time, when he
rubbed the soil from a chunk of rock and looked, he straight-
ened up suddenly, gasping with delight. And then, like
a deer at a drinking pool in fear of its enemies, he flung a
quick glance around to see if any eye were gazing upon him.

BURNING DAYLIGHT 357

He grinned at his own foolishness and returned to his exam-
ination of the chunk. A slant of sunlight fell on it, and it
was all aglitter with tiny specks of unmistakable free gold.

"From the grass roots down," he muttered in an awe-
stricken voice, as he swung his pick into the yielding surface.

He seemed to undergo a transformation. No quart of
cocktails had ever put such a flame in his cheeks nor such
a fire in his eyes. As he worked, he was caught up in the
old passion that had ruled most of his life. A frenzy seized
him that markedly increased from moment to moment.
He worked like a madman, till he panted from his exertions
and the sweat dripped from his face to the ground. He
quested across the face of the slide to the opposite wall of
the vein and back again. And, midway, he dug down
through the red volcanic earth that had washed from the
disintegrating hill above, until he uncovered quartz, rotten
quartz, that broke and crumbled in his hands and showed
to be alive with free gold.

Sometimes he started small slides of earth that covered
up his work and compelled him to dig again. Once, he was
swept fifty feet down the caiion-side; but he floundered
and scrambled up again without pausing for breath. He
hit upon quartz that was so rotten that it was almost like
clay, and here the gold was richer than ever. It was a
veritable treasure chamber. For a hundred feet up and
down he traced the walls of the vein. He even climbed
over the canon-lip to look along the brow of the hill for
signs of the outcrop. But that could wait, and he hurried
back to his find.

He toiled on in the same mad haste, until exhaustion and
an intolerable ache in his back compelled him to pause. He
straightened up with even a richer piece of gold-laden
quartz. Stooping, the sweat from his forehead had fallen to
the ground. It now ran into his eyes, blinding him. He
wiped it from him with the back of his hand and returned to

358 BURNING DAYLIGHT

a scrutiny of the gold. It would run thirty thousand to the
ton, fifty thousand, anything — he knew that. And as he
gazed upon the yellow lure, and panted for air, and wiped
the sweat away, his quick vision leaped and set to work.
He saw the spur-track that must run up from the valley and
across the upland pastures, and he ran the grades and built
the bridge that would span the canon, until it was real
before his eyes. Across the canon was the place for the
mill, and there he erected it; and he erected, also, the end-
less chain of buckets, suspended from a cable and operated
by gravity, that would carry the ore across the caiion to
the quartz-crusher. Likewise, the whole mine grew before
him and beneath him — tunnels, shafts, and galleries,
and hoisting plants. The blasts of the miners were in his
ears, and from across the canon he could hear the roar of
the stamps. The hand that held the lump of quartz was
trembhng, and there was a tired, nervous palpitation ap-
parently in the pit of his stomach. It came to him abrupt-
ly that what he wanted was a drink — whiskey, cocktails,
anything, a drink. And even then, with this new hot
yearning for the alcohol upon him, he heard, faint and far,
drifting down the green abyss of the caiion, Dede's voice,
crying: —

''Here, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick! Here, chick ^
chick, chick!"

He was astounded at the lapse of time. She had left her
sewing on the porch and was feeding the chickens prepara-
tory to getting supper. The afternoon was gone. He could
not conceive that he had been away that long.

Again came the call: "Here, chick, chick, chick, chick,
chick! Here, chick, chick, chick!"

It was the way she always called — first five, and then
three. He had long since noticed it. And from these
thoughts of her arose other thoughts that caused a great
fear slowly to grow in his face. For it seemed to him that

BURNING DAYLIGHT 359

he had almost lost her. Not once had he thought of her in
those frenzied hours, and for that much, at least, had she
truly been lost to him.

He dropped the piece of quartz, slid down the slide, and
started up the trail, running heavily. At the edge of the
clearing he eased down and almost crept to a point of van-
tage whence he could peer out, himself unseen. She was
feeding the chickens, tossing to them handfuls of grain and
laughing at their antics.

The sight of her seemed to relieve the panic fear into
which he had been flung, and he turned and ran back down
the trail. Again he climbed the shde, but this time he
climbed higher, carrying the pick and shovel with him.
And again he toiled frenziedly, but this time with a different
purpose. He worked artfully, loosing slide after slide of
the red soil and sending it streaming down and covering up
all he had uncovered, hiding from the light of day the
treasure he had discovered. He even went into the woods
and scooped armfuls of last year's fallen leaves which he
scattered over the slide. But this he gave up as a vain task;
and he sent more slides of soil down upon the scene of his
labor, until no sign remained of the out-jutting walls of the
vein.

Next he repaired the broken pipe, gathered his tools
together, and started up the trail. He walked slowly, feel-
ing a great weariness, as of a man who had passed through
a frightful crisis. He put the tools away, took a great drink
of the water that again flowed through the pipes, and sat
down on the bench by the open kitchen door. Dede was
inside, preparing supper, and the sound of her footsteps
gave him a vast content.

He breathed the balmy mountain air in great gulps, like
a diver fresh-risen from the sea. And, as he drank in the
air, he gazed with all his eyes at the clouds and sky and
valley, as if he were drinking in that, too, along with the air.

360 BURNING DAYLIGHT

Dede did not know he had come back, and at times he
turned his head and stole glances in at her — at her effi-
cient hands, at the bronze of her brown hair that smoul-
dered with fire when she crossed the path of sunshine that
streamed through the window, at the promise of her figure
that shot through him a pang most strangely sweet and
sweetly dear. He heard her approaching the door, and kept
his head turned resolutely toward the valley. And next, he
thrilled, as he had always thrilled, when he felt the caress-
ing gentleness of her fingers through his hair.

"I didn't know you were back," she said. "Was it
serious?"

"Pretty bad, that slide," he answered, still gazing away
and thrilling to her touch. "More serious than I reckoned.
But I've got the plan. Do you know what I'm going to do?
— I'm going to plant eucalyptus all over it. They'll hold
it. I'll plant them thick as grass, so that even a hungry
rabbit can't squeeze between them; and when they get their
roots agoing, nothing in creation will ever move that dirt
again."

"Why, is it as bad as that?"

He shook his head.

"Nothing exciting. But I'd sure like to see any blamed
old slide get the best of me, that's all. I'm going to seal that
slide down so that it'll stay there for a million years. And
when the last trump sounds, and Sonoma Mountain and all
the other mountains pass into nothingness, that old slide
will be still a-standing there, held up by the roots."

He passed his arm around her and pulled her down on his
knees.

"Say, little woman, you sure miss a lot by living here on
the ranch — music, and theatres, and such things. Don't
you ever have a hankering to drop it all and go back?"

So great was his anxiety that he dared not look at her,
and when she laughed and shook her head he was aware of

BURNING DAYLIGHT 361

a great relief. Also, he noted the undiminished youth that
rang through that same old-time boyish laugh of hers.

*'Say," he said, with sudden fierceness, "don't you go
fooling around that slide until after I get the trees in and
rooted. It's mighty dangerous, and I sure can't afford to
lose you now."

He drew her lips to his and kissed her hungrily and
passionately,

"What a lover!" she said; and pride in him and in her
own womanhood was in her voice.

"Look at that, Dede." He removed one encircling arm
and swept it in a wide gesture over the valley and the moun-
tains beyond. "The Valley of the Moon — a good name,
a good name. Do you know, when I look out over it all,
and think of you and of all it means, it kind of makes me
ache in the throat, and I have things in my heart I can't
find the words to say, and I have a feeling that I can almost
understand Browning and those other high-flying poet-fel-
lows. Look at Hood Mountain there, just where the sun's
striking. It was down in that crease that we found the
spring."

"And that was the night you didn't milk the cows till
ten o'clock," she laughed. "And if you keep me here
much longer, supper won't be any earher than it was that
night."

Both arose from the bench, and Daylight caught up the
milk-pail from the nail by the door. He paused a moment
longer to look out over the valley.

"It's sure grand," he said.

"It's sure grand," she echoed, laughing joyously at him
and with him and herself and all the world, as she passed
in through the door.

And Daylight, like the old man he once had met, himself
went down the hill through the fires of sunset with a milk-
pail on his arm.

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